The Crimson Eyed Witch
by Kamui Senketsu
Summary: Dust. Kaguya turned them to dust. So with the power no mortal should have, and seals no mortal should procure, she went back. But that kid with Kurama in their seal isn't a younger version of her. That kid is a boy named Menma Uzumaki. She's Naruto Uzumaki, from another world and time, and she's alone. But she'll save them anyway. Ruthless/ClaymoreWielding/OP femNaruto. No Pairings
1. Prologue: Witch

**WARNING This story contains: Blood, gore, profanity, sexual themes, dark themes, and ruthless/misunderstood femNaru.**

 **This story also contains elements from the anime/manga Claymore.**

 **I don't own Naruto, Claymore, or the cover art.**

* * *

Crimson eyes with cruel slit pupils watched as a black humanoid figure on the floor writhed, white seal tags slowly crawling over its body, imprisoning it.

"You witch!" The creature shrieked, fighting with all of its might, razor teeth gleaming in the dim lighting of the cave they inhabited. "You absolute _witch!_ "

"That's what they call me these days you know," Was the emotionless reply. "The Crimson Eyed Witch."

The razor toothed thing snarled at her, sealing paper strangling the cursed breath out of it.

"You can't do this!" It spat. "My Mother! What about my mother!?"

The crimson eyes flashed in a brief moment of absolute rage.

The owner of those eyes quickly called back the hatred they felt swelling within them, bringing their hands up before their cloak covered chest, forming the ram sign.

"Your mother will never see the light of day." They intoned. "She will never awaken with you out of the picture."

"Damn you!"

Lips hidden by the shadow of a cloak's hood stretched into a bitter smirk.

"Too late. Hell is almost the same as living these days…" The figure murmured, gathering chakra. " _Seal!_ "

Chakra burst through the hands of the cloaked, crimson eyed figure's hands, and the last of the sealing tags wrapped around the writhing figure's face, silencing it.

Black sealing insignias crept all over the paper covered mass, locking the tags in place forever.

The cloaked figure reached up, unclasping the necklace around their neck, slipping into a crouch beside the creature they had just sealed away.

They made quick work of the paper mass, sealing it into the twinkling green crystal they wore around their neck, instantly turning the beautiful jewel black, the color of nightmares.

Fixing the jewelry back around their throat, the figure turned around and left the underground cave.

"After I hunted down Akatsuki, you should have known that I would come for you… Zetsu."

Standing at the gaping mouth of a cave, the open midnight air breathed a chilly sigh, blowing the hood from the figure's head, revealing long sunshine blonde locks.

Crimson eyes shimmered, shifting to a deep cobalt blue with normal round pupils.

A face looked up, whiskers fading away to smooth blemishless cheeks, blue orbs peering into the glowing white face of the full moon.

"There's no way I'll let my future destroy this place. Not when I was given the chance to change it."

The figure took a step out into the night, and blurred from existence.


	2. The Crimson Eyed Witch

**IMPORTANT: Naruto and Obito are broken, and will only take silent comfort in one another. Maybe I'll hint at things in the future, but nothing obvious I promise. So no pairings. Please don't ask for one.**

 **I don't own Naruto or the cover art.**

* * *

 _We do not wish to enter Heaven until our work is done, for it would make us uneasy if there were one single soul left to be saved by our means._

 _-Charles Spurgeon_

* * *

Something about her rubbed Kakashi the wrong way.

And even though he usually couldn't even see her face, (as she covered up more of it than he did), she had this _look_ about her. This aura. An aura that said, 'I know things that you don't. I know and you never will'.

He knew it was irrational, but she irked him. He didn't dislike her per se, she just held so much mystery it miffed him knowing he'd probably never find what she was hiding.

And she was cold. So much colder than Kakashi could ever remember being.

She walked into the bar he was occupying with a handful of his acquaintances (Kurenai, Asuma, Genma, Anko, Ibiki, Hayate) and Guy, (because Guy could never be a mere acquaintance, the Hatake supposed he could call the weirdo his friend).

She lacked her usual obscuring, long white hooded cloak, but kept her pitch colored shoulder guards that had a brown strap running from her left shoulder to her right hip, sheathing the massive claymore on her back. The sword itself was almost as tall as she was. The hilt was a foot long, a gleaming rare form of chakra metal, the tip holding an odd spear like attachment with Konoha's emblem engraved across its face.

Her hair was one of the brightest shades of blonde he had ever seen, and unruly, pulled into a loose ponytail over her left shoulder. Her skin was fair, bordering on pale, and she was tall, about 5ft 10, her form willowy, but probably monstrously strong.

She wore a tar colored bodysuit, with light pitch colored armor at her chest, thighs, and shins. Her sandals were attached to her suit, the soles simple, thick, white two inch heels. Surprisingly, her neatly trimmed toenails were painted a soft orange.

Kakashi's single visible eye followed her as she slipped through the suddenly dead silent bar, feet not making a sound. The Copy nin couldn't even sense her. The only reason people knew she was there was because she had walked right in where they could see her.

"She's good," Anko muttered, pink tongue snaking out to slide over her lips. "I can't sense her at all."

Kakashi refrained from rolling his eye, noting Anko's hazel gaze was fixed on the blonde's ass. It was common knowledge the Snake Mistress had a crush on the resident Ice Queen (officially voted coldest woman in Konoha at rejecting dates, right before Kurenai), however unfriendly Anko behaved with the blonde.

"I've never seen her without that cloak," Hayate rasped, coughing a bit into the curve of his elbow.

"She must've been called in unexpectedly and couldn't grab it," Ibiki said, keen dark eyes following the silent visitor as she made her way over to the bar.

"What makes you think she's here on business?" Kurenai mumbled, red eyes sharp.

Ibiki took a swig from his half empty glass, swallowing audibly before he answered. "Do you really think she would be here otherwise? And take a look at those eyes of hers."

Everyone focused on the blonde woman's profile, taking note of the glowing crimson eyes with inhuman slit pupils, irises swirling with gold streams like pits of boiling magma.

Guy took in a sharp breath. "Were they not blue a moment before?"

"Yeah, they were." Genma assured him, brown eyes narrowing perceptively.

"Hm." Asuma grunted, gaining their attention. "They say those eyes miss absolutely nothing when searching for enemies… and traitors."

Kakashi's gray eye sliced into the bearded man sitting across from him, little orange book lying forgotten on the booth's table.

"You think we've got rats?" The Hatake questioned.

It was Ibiki who answered, dragging the attention back over to him.

"If Danzo is Hokage-sama's hands, that woman is his eyes. She hasn't failed him once. It's the reason she bears that name. The way her eyes never miss anyone she's hunting for even if they excel in stealth is so unreal it's like magic. Hence, The Crimson Eyed Witch."

"Chunin Mizuki."

Kakashi's eye zeroed in on the blonde as her solemn voice pierced the silence of the bar.

The white haired man swiveled around on his stool, looking up with curious black eyes, only for his skin to drain of all color at who loomed behind him. The bandana wearing man swallowed thickly, briefly glancing at his friend beside him, a scarred man that Kakashi recognized as Iruka Umino.

Iruka stared back at Mizuki helplessly, knowing that whatever the woman was there for, he could not help with.

"The Genin Exams." She continued in her soft tones. "They're tomorrow, are they not."

Kakashi would have wondered why she was asking the man that, when everyone and their mother knew it to be true, but the silver haired Hatake knew drawing out her reason for approaching Mizuki was just apart of her job. She was a symbol of fear.

When she came for an enemy in disguise, or a traitor, she drew out the process of being rid of them to warn all those bearing witness not to follow in the footsteps of the enemy. Because she would find you. And no one valuing their life would _dare_ betray Konoha with her ever watching eyes peeling your lies of skin.

Apparently, Mizuki didn't get the memo, because she had come for him.

"Y-yes…" The man finally stuttered, skin breaking out in a dew of sweat. "Yes they are."

"I see." The woman intoned. "Were you, or were you not planning to manipulate Menma Uzumaki into stealing the Forbidden Scroll for you after insuring his failure of the Exam?"

Kakashi heard the silent bar fill with identical sharp intakes of breath. But no one dared to make a single sound after that.

Mizuki's skin had gone an unhealthy gray tone, and Iruka was quaking slightly on the barstool next to him.

"H-how…?" Mizuki croaked. "How did you…"

The woman's crimson eyes flashed for a moment, before they became devoid of emotion like the rest of her once more.

"I see," She uttered blankly. "Chunin Mizuki, please come with me."

The Chunin froze, and Kakashi _swore_ the man had been about to bolt.

"So be it." She stated.

Kakashi's silver brows furrowed when the Chunin just sat on his bar stool with wide dark eyes, mouth gaping open.

The woman dropped the hand that Kakashi hadn't even seen _twitch_ from the hilt of her claymore, turned fluidly on her heel, and began walking away.

Everyone flinched as blood suddenly spurted out of Mizuki's temple, spraying across Iruka's terrified face.

Kakashi lunged to his feet alongside many others, watching helplessly as the crown of Mizuki's head slid clean off, thumping wetly to the scuffed bar floors, sending crimson spraying from the twisted pink-gray mass of his revealed brain matter into the air.

Mizuki's body swayed for a moment, before toppling over, landing thunderously, his brain sloshing out of his skull alongside the sticky metallic fluids quickly pooling around his head.

"Oh shit." Anko breathed.

"Such brutality…" Kurenai huffed, nose twisting in distaste.

"I didn't even see her draw her sword." Hayate murmured, awed. "The _control_ it must've taken to use a blade that large to only shave off the crown of his head…And that _speed..._ it's… it's _inhuman._ "

"And the cut is clean too." Genma said, eyeing Mizuki's corpse grimly. "Scary clean considering no one saw her draw or put her sword away."

"You know they say she's got the fastest draw in Konoha. That technique..." Asuma murmured. "It cuts wind itself."

"Damn fool," Ibiki muttered, sipping at his drink. "Did he really think he could hide from her eyes?"

 _'I knew it.'_ Kakashi thought. _'Mizuki had been about to run, and in that split second it took for me to blink, she had drawn her sword and cut clean through his skull, making it look like he'd never moved in the first place.'_

Kakashi sat back down, keen eye following Guy as the green clad taijutsu specialist moved to make sure Iruka was okay.

The Hatake's gray eye slid over to the door the solemn woman had left through, narrowing at the thought of her skill.

 _'Where the hell did she even come from?'_ He found himself wondering for what was not the first time. _'She just showed up one day, stopped the complete purging of the Uchiha clan, and then somehow got instated as Hokage-sama's one and only Hunter nin.'_

With a slight sigh and shake of his head, Kakashi picked up his forgotten book, flipping through the worn pages to his favorite part, ignoring the ANBU that flashed into the bar to dispose of Mizuki's remains.

* * *

The blonde woman channeled chakra into her feet, overloading the flow to send herself bursting upwards. She then swiftly and silently took to the rooftops.

She sensed the presence behind her before they even spoke.

"That was cruel of you, Naruto."

The woman turned to face the tall man standing behind her, sharp eyes slicing into his pale face, illuminated by the moonlight. His skin was completely smooth, but when the moonlight hit him at the perfect angle, you could see faint silvery scars stretching across his face like the beams of the sun. At first, that side of his face had been made up of raised scar tissue, but Naruto had healed it to the best of her ability.

She healed it so well that you could only see he had scars in certain lighting. She had even restored that eye of his. The one that he had given to his best friend so long ago.

Her red eyes flickered out, returning to their blue hue.

"I don't want to hear that from you, Obito."

The raven haired man grinned, all teeth, making him seem more like a beast baring its fangs at a hated fellow predator.

 _'I do what I have to.'_ She reminded herself. _'I will continue to do what I have to until I'm killed and go where ever it is my kind go.'_

Naruto didn't react at all when his gloved hand closed around her wrist in a bruising hold, yanking her against him as he fazed out in a swirling vortex.

 _'Killing is all I can do anymore. I've forgotten how to live by my shinobi way...'_

They reappeared within her spacious home, hidden among the towering trees of the Forest of Death.

The woman unsheathed her sword, walking over to her bedroom, entering and stabbing the blade into a slit inside the polished floorboards by her bedside. She'd installed it because she usually slept sitting with her back against the sword instead of in the bed, and she didn't want to have a home full of holes because her blade needed grounding to stand.

There were no beds during war, and rarely sleep at all. She just hadn't gotten out of the habit of sleeping almost as aware as she was when awake.

Naruto ignored the Uchiha that entered her room silently.

 _'How can he say I'm cruel when we're exactly the same?'_ Naruto thought, snorting quietly. _'If my comrades could see what I've become...'_

The blonde shuddered in shame at the thought.

Naruto went about undressing, uncaring as Obito watched her go about the task, seating himself on the foot of her bed and folding one of his legs over the other.

She took her discarded body suit to the washer and deposited it within the machine in the back of her kitchen, turning it on, and returning to her bedroom in nothing but a pair of black underwear.

She caught the sports bra Obito threw her with one hand, and pulled it over her head, covering the swell of her breasts.

Her shoulder guards, shin guards, and arm guards had been placed neatly on her nightstand by Obito while she'd been putting her suit in the wash.

Naruto moved to her nightstand, picking up a lone bottle of nail polish in a light tone of pink named _"awesome blossom",_ reminiscent to the silky strands of hair of her first love. She honestly didn't really like the color unless it was on the specific head of a specific person, but that person had always used the same polish on their own nails.

Naruto unraveled the bandage coiling up her right arm, revealing a smooth pale limb with perfectly filed nails and calloused fingers that had once been delicate. A medic's hand.

Above the elbow, the milky skin shifted slightly to a more peachy tone. Naruto's skin tone. But it wasn't perfect, between the peachy and milky skin was a nasty, jagged pale pink scar of raised silvery skin, wrapping the entire circumference around the arm.

The arm had been given to her, spliced into her own flesh and blood and bonded to become her own after her original had been turned to ash.

It was not the only place on her body that had scarred.

Naruto resisted the urge to press her hand against her abdomen.

"You're doing it again." Obito quipped.

"Doin' what?"

"Thinking dark thoughts."

"Like you don't just as much as me." She muttered.

The Uchiha laughed humorlessly, and said no more.

"Yeah, s'what I thought." Naruto grunted, finally unscrewing the cap to the polish, and began painting her nails.

She did this task quietly, despite her lack of clothing.

The blue eyed woman didn't care if Obito saw her undressed, because he'd been the first and only man to ever undress her in the first place. They still periodically had sex whenever he was in the mood, because they were both a sorry pair of souls that had nothing better to do at the end of the day after spying and killing for their beliefs.

Naruto had a strange relationship with the Uchiha.

They were not lovers, and not really friends either. She supposed they classified as kindred spirits. Previous dead last orphans that started out with almost no one believing in them, only to grow up as some of the most powerful shinobi to have ever been born. They had shared the same childhood dream, and were shattered as people when they lost everything that they loved, left empty and bitter.

"So," Obito spoke up, taking Naruto's brief glance as permission to continue, (not that he took orders from her). "Aren't you going to ask me how Ame is holding up?"

Naruto sighed, adding another glossy coat over her middle finger. "Since you already asked, why don't you just tell me?"

"Well, after you slaughtered most of Akatsuki's forces-"

 _'Itachi still has business, plus I simply don't want to kill him. Unfortunately, that bastard Kisame got away…'_

"-you can imagine how weakened they became, and how much money they lost." Obito said, having no clue what the blonde was thinking.

"Ame will survive." The blonde uttered darkly. "Nagato and Konan are only still alive because I didn't want to risk Ame declaring war if it somehow got out that one of Konoha's shinobi assassinated their leaders."

 _'Originally I had convinced Nagato to see reason, but only after he killed Pervy Sage. I couldn't let that happen this time around, so I compromised and showed both him and Konan the truth of the future through my memories.'_

"You really believe that Ame declaring war would have an impact on Konoha's forces?" Obito asked, turning around on the bed to stare at the blonde, his nearly flawless features unreadable.

"Don't be an idiot." The blonde responded flatly. "Nagato and Konan are S rank ninja. And you saw my memories, you know what a single one of Nagato's paths can do. Imagine I failed in an assassination, they would declare war. Unnecessary when I could have them as allies."

 _'Plus, if one small village declared war, others would soon follow. All those baring grudges from previous wars would eventually lead to Konoha's end...'_

"Yeah, you're right." Obito shrugged. "At least Konoha now has a tentative alliance with Ame. But even if they're wary, there's no way Nagato would cross _you._ And Konan will follow Nagato no matter what he does."

"Hm." Naruto grunted. "How's their economy?"

"It's picking itself back up. They've recently signed treaties with the Land of Iron and Snow. So they're getting shipments for food and weapons. They're even taking missions. Started a new Academy disregarding Hanzo's teachings to."

"That's good." Naruto muttered, moving to paint the nails of her left hand.

The two lapsed into silence, but it wasn't unwelcome or awkward. They had become used to each other, to the point where sometimes they didn't need to talk to speak to one another. Even so, Naruto recognized he was not the same man who placed his dreams within her to be fulfilled while he reunited with Rin in the pure land.

He wasn't the Obito she had met during the Fourth War in her world and time. That Obito had been in his thirties, turned to ash by Kaguya alongside Naruto's original right arm as she tried to save him, where this one was twenty six, and only had her to anchor his last shreds of sanity.

That day was still fresh in Naruto's mind.

She had been pinned down by the gravity of one of Kaguya's dimensions, but she had dragged herself over to the man standing over her protectively, and grabbed hold of his leg, unknowing that he'd teleported the All-Killing Ash Bones heading for Kakashi-sensei away, allowing the attack towards him to connect.

Obito, along with Naruto's arm as she still held onto his leg had collapsed into ash, and before Naruto could follow Obito into death, Sasuke shot out a fireball, separating her infected limb from her body, leaving her with a singed stump.

She hadn't even screamed, because she was too busy staring into the dust that had been the man who shielded her from harm.

The blonde sighed slightly, moving on to painting her toes, and Obito wandered off to the kitchen to raid it for something to eat.

 _'I wonder what kind of relationship I would have had with Obito in my world had he never been crushed by that boulder. Would he have been my sensei? My friend?'_

Shaking away her grim thoughts, the blonde put away her nail polish, and undid her hair, beginning to brush it into submission.

 _'It doesn't matter. That's history now…'_

Naruto heard her shower start, knowing the Uchiha had clothes stashed in her house if he ever needed them. She'd been showering when the Third summoned her to take Mizuki's head, so she would just go to bed after getting something to eat.

She had duties in the morning, and knew the Third was going to try to get her to interact with people. Genin teams would be the perfect excuse for the old man to push her towards socializing under the guise of instating her as a tutor. He had mentioned it before, having the blonde help strengthen Konoha by training the rookies when they became teams alongside their sensei. She'd expressed her dislike of the idea quite firmly.

The blonde got up from her dark comforter, and padded across her polished hardwood floor, making her way into her tidy kitchen.

Obito had left out a tray of half eaten apple pie that Naruto had bought a few days earlier. After cutting herself a slice, and quickly polishing it off, Naruto grabbed a glass from the cupboard, filling it with water and moved to her freezer for a few cubes of ice.

The blonde pulled open the freezer, unmoved by the severed head sitting in the left corner of the nearly empty space. The skin of the head may have been tan at some point, but death had it stained a void gray hue, silver hair slicked back and lashes crusted closed with frost.

Naruto pulled out an ice tray, cracked it, and pulled out a few cubes, dropping them into her glass. When she slid the tray back into the freezer, the lids of the severed head scraped back and forth, before peeling open, revealing a pair of livid red eyes.

"Y-you stupid b-bitch!" The head spat, teeth chattering.

"Wow. Rude." The blonde said, giving the head a flat look.

"W-when I get out of h-here, I'm g-going to rip y-you apart!"

"How many times have I heard that one?" Naruto asked, tone still flat as she sipped at her ice water. "Just give it up Hidan. I didn't fear you at eighteen, and I don't fear you at twenty three."

"F-five years!?" The Jashinist demanded. "Y-you've had m-me in this fr-freezer for f- _five_ fucking years?"

"Hm, yeah." Naruto sipped her water again. "Just about. Too bad your head can't freeze all the way through. Maybe if you froze you'd shut up for once."

"F-fuck you!"

"No thanks." Naruto retorted, the right side of her mouth tilting up.

"That's what I'm here for." A new voice chimed, killing her smile before it could really begin.

Naruto allowed Obito to take her glass from her, and set it aside.

As Hidan began cursing up a storm, Obito pushed the freezer closed, muffling the silver haired head's screeching.

The Uchiha teleported Naruto back to her bedroom, landing on top of her once her back hit the bed.

The blonde's face went entirely blank as the man's rough hands whispered up her thighs, hooking the sides of her panties.

"Would it kill you to not stare at me like a corpse?" Obito asked, lips pursed.

"I have to report in tomorrow." Was the blank reply.

Obito's lips twitched.

"I'll be gentle." Was all he said.

They both knew it was a lie.

He was never gentle. That was a human trait.

They'd both stopped being human a long time ago.

* * *

 _ **"Naruto, don't be an idiot."** Kurama said, giving a long suffering sigh. **"Say your goodbyes you foolish girl."**_

 _"Kurama please don't…" The blonde pleaded. "Don't leave me all alone… I lost everyone…. Everyone's gone… so don't you leave me too!"_

 _The blonde had blood staining down her chin, body covered in scratches and scrapes from her last battle before everyone turned to dust. Her right stump was stitching itself to Sakura's arm, Kurama's golden chakra mending the obliterated flesh to the pinkette's gift._

 _The Nine Tailed Bijuu had been torn from Naruto's body by an unknown force, and he was using the last of his strength to heal the blonde._

 _The two partners were suspended in space, stars twinkling distantly in the vast blackness. They drifted slowly through the nothingness, and Naruto could see Kurama's form slowly breaking down. He was disappearing right before Naruto's blue eyes, and it made her feel like she was the one being torn apart._

 _ **"Naruto."** Kurama called for her attention, sounding as serious and soft as the blonde had ever heard him._

 ** _"If you don't bid me farewell, you will regret it."_**

 _The blonde coughed wetly, metallic fluid spurting from her lips and slowly drifting from her face._ _The area around her eyes was a bruised and fatigued black, her skin drained to a sickly ashen tone._

 _"Kurama, I don't want to be all alone again." Naruto rasped, red bubbling from her blue lips and oozing down her chin._

 _ **"There is no guarantee we won't meet again."** The fox comforted._

 _"But where will you be?" Naruto asked helplessly._

 ** _"Within your other self. My other half in the time you've chosen is still locked inside the Shinigami's stomach. This is simply my current self merging with my past self. So I will not forget you."_**

 _Naruto's eyes began stinging._

 ** _"Even though we will be apart, it won't change the fact that I have acknowledged you as my partner. It won't change that you, Naruto Uzumaki foretold Child of Prophecy, is the best friend of Kurama, the Nine Tailed Fox."_**

 _A flood of tears spilled down Naruto's whiskered cheeks, the lack of gravity within the void causing them to drift away, just as she felt Kurama doing._

 _He was being pulled farther and farther away from her._

 _"I'll miss you, Kurama." Naruto said, bloody lips trembling with the force of her tears, and voice wavering under her sorrow._

 ** _"I know."_**

 _It was still quite strange to see the powerful bijuu smile so gently. His sharp teeth were not visible, and his usually vivid red eyes were soft with the weight of the love he carried for his human friend._

 _"This isn't fair…" The blonde whimpered, studying Kurama's once towering form before her._

 _More than half of the bijuu was missing, and his remaining four tails swayed slightly behind him._

 _ **"Before we part, I will give you the chakra within all of my tails. Because they're is two of me, the chakra I have now would be too much for my Yang half. If I were to reunite with my Yin half, Yang would be twice as voluminous. There would be an imbalance. So, to have equal Yin and Yang in this world, my current self's chakra will become your chakra. Time will convert all Nine Tails to your own source."** The fox said. **"Use it alongside Son Goku's, and Shukaku's gifts that now run through your blood."**_

 _'He's talking about Lava and Magnet Release…!' She realized._

 ** _"Naruto…"_**

 _The blonde looked up, tears still drifting silently away from her pale face._

 _ **"You're my best friend."** The fox admitted._

 _Naruto choked on a sob._

 _"I love you Kurama." She said._

 ** _"Heh. So soft hearted for a being like me, until the very end."_**

 _"I wish I didn't have to say it..." Naruto choked, crimson dribbling down her chin as she gave a small watery smile._

 _Kurama's tails dispelled behind him in a burst of golden orange lights, and Naruto felt his warm purified chakra fill her coils, comforting her as her heart slowly cracked into pieces._

 _The bijuu grinned sharply, holding out his only remaining appendage._

 _His fist._

 _One last time, Naruto bumped her tiny fist against her friend's._

 _Kurama's large red eyes softened impossibly for the blonde, his razor grin lulling to a gentle turn of his black lips._

 _ **"Goodbye Naruto."** He murmured._

 _The blonde's lips trembled._

 _"Goodbye Kurama." She murmured back._

 _And then there was light._

 _It was like thousands of frenzied fireflies, and they spread out, tickling Naruto's tear stained face with the remnants of the fox's chakra. But they faded away, leaving Naruto's heart filled with a sense of loss. And the loss weighed her down with despair._

 _She felt herself being pulled, pulled into the frame of time she'd chosen to leap into. Blackness crept up on the corners of her vision as her consciousness faded._

 _'Maybe it would be better if I never wake up…'_

* * *

Naruto jolted awake with boiling red eyes, hand closing around the throat of the person looming above her, rolling over so she straddled them, Sakura's hand glowing with menacing green chakra that could slit the intruder's throat in the blink of an eye.

"You had another nightmare." Was the blank explanation.

With an explosive sigh, Naruto canceled the chakra flow to the chakra scalpel around her gifted hand, and got up off of Obito.

She didn't apologize, and the Uchiha didn't expect her to. He slept in the same fitful way she did whenever he could steal a bit of shut eye.

Naked as the day she was born, Naruto made her way to the door on the far right of her bedroom, ignoring the ache in her hips and thighs.

 _'Gentle my ass.'_ She inwardly grumbled. _'That turd looked me right in the eye and lied.'_

The blonde entered her bathroom, turning on the shower after squeezing a bit of minty paste onto her toothbrush. When the liquid spray began steaming, Naruto stepped into the tub, beginning to brush her teeth as the water soaked her long hair down to each individual strand.

After about two minutes, Obito came in fully dressed in a black shirt and matching shinobi pants and sandals, picking up the toothbrush he left in the old jam jar beside Naruto's.

"What time is it?" The blonde asked, spitting foam onto the tub's floor, moving her feet out of the way as the shower washed it away.

"About five minutes after twelve." Obito returned, brushing his own teeth. "The Third sent you a monkey with a note saying report in at twelve thirty."

Naruto sighed, sticking her hand out from behind the shower curtain. Wordlessly, Obito took her toothbrush from her, rinsed it off, and returned it to the jar on the bathroom counter.

"Does Jiji know you're in the village?" Naruto asked, washing herself.

"Probably." The Uchiha answered, rinsing his mouth out.

"Did you think about his offer?" Naruto asked.

There was a pause, and though the blonde could barely sense his presence, and had she been anyone else she probably _wouldn't,_ she knew he was still there.

The only people Naruto showed the future to through her memories had been Sarutobi Hiruzen, Nagato, Konan, and Obito Uchiha.

After the blonde had picked off Akatsuki, (excluding Itachi and Kisame), and convinced Nagato to forget his hatred, Naruto had searched for both Obito and Zetsu. Eventually, she'd found Obito, and had taken him captive, knowing merely trying to speak with him at that point in his life would've been pointless.

She forcibly showed the Uchiha her memories after insuring he could not escape the bind she put him in. He was still holding a light grudge that she'd torn out his eye to keep him from using Kamui. Her apology had been restoring his missing one.

Naruto had left him for two weeks in captivity, sending kage bunshin in to give him water and just enough food to keep him barely alive. The bunshin didn't talk to him, and once Naruto returned two weeks later, Obito vowed that he wouldn't make all of the mistakes his future self would.

He hadn't known what to do with himself after Naruto had given him back his eye, regenerated the other, and healed up the scars left behind by the boulder in his youth.

Naruto said he could do whatever he wanted as long as it wasn't threatening to others.

Knowing she'd been searching for Zetsu, Obito had given her his location, allowing the blonde to seal the creature away.

After that, Obito just wandered a bit, observing the shinobi nations and popping into Konoha on whims to tell Naruto this and that, mess around a bit, and ask her things about what she planned to do next. The blonde was still thinking about what she would do about Kisame if he ever showed up again. He had been the only one to escape her after all.

Yagura had stopped all of the bloodline purging after he was no longer under the influence of Obito's sharingan. Though, Kiri still loathed the young looking kage, he made no move to do anything volatile, and ran his village as if he hadn't been the reason for many genocides. Obito had told Naruto he suspected Yagura would be announcing his retirement very soon.

Naruto was fine with the movement of things, knowing that she could not save everyone. She hadn't thought about saving everyone in a long time. She now knew some things were just impossible, and that no matter how stubborn she was, how loudly she preached, some things could not be changed.

The Third and Obito knew the others that Naruto had shared the future with, but as far as Nagato and Konan were concerned, Naruto had only enlightened them. Because of that slight misinformation, the two Ame shinobi trusted Naruto above all else beside each other. She was the sole reason an alliance had even been formed between the two silently hostile villages.

More presently, Old Man Hokage had asked Obito if he wanted to rejoin Konoha as a shinobi after the settlement of the Akatsuki issue, and the Uchiha had responded with 'I'll think about it'.

Well, he'd been "thinking" about it for four years, so Naruto thought it was about time she just asked him about it.

"Nah, I don't think I'll be coming back publicly." Obito finally said.

Honestly, Naruto was not surprised. She'd run away to if she could.

"Unlike you, I couldn't retain my sanity staring ghosts in the face everyday."

Naruto didn't respond, a bitter taste in her mouth as she listened to Obito exit the bathroom and quietly close the door behind him.

Naruto knew he was talking about all of the Jounin that had once been his peers, and even what remained of his clan after the killing of its elders and leader, Fugaku Uchiha.

When Naruto showed the future, the watcher saw and felt everything in her point of view. So Obito knew how everyone died during the Fourth War, and he knew that he played a big part in all of the destruction and Kaguya's revival.

Naruto arrived in the past at eighteen, and had been operating behind the scenes as The Crimson Eyed Witch up until the massacre, forced to reveal herself as Itachi went about killing his clan by order of Danzo. Of course Obito had played no part in it this time around, having already been enlightened by Naruto.

Itachi only got away with killing the people behind the plans of the massacre, sparing the children and most of the innocent parents. He'd fled the village after knocking Sasuke out with a genjutsu, forcing the boy to watch his father and grandparents slaughtered over and over again.

Shisui was not dead, and took responsibility for Sasuke as his mother endlessly fought with depression. Naruto had allowed the events of Naka River to occur to awaken Itachi's mangekyou sharingan, but instead of leaving the shunshin expert to drown, she'd saved him after stealing the eye he'd given to Itachi.

She healed Shisui, putting his left eye back into its socket, and told him that there was too much to do to die. Itachi had fled the village in tears, thanking Naruto for freeing him of the fate of killing his entire family.

Danzo was still alive, because the Third hadn't wanted him to die just yet, if ever, saying he still needed his old friend and rival. Though, the old Kage hadn't prohibited Naruto from tearing Shisui's eye out of Danzo's face and returning it to its original owner. Which she did, perhaps with a bit too much satisfaction...

The blonde knew the bandaged old war monger was lusting for her death till this day. It had not been publicly announced Danzo was basically a traitor, but Hiruzen promised to take the war hawk's head himself if he so much as blinked in an Uchiha's direction.

So far since the massacre Danzo had done nothing to gain Hiruzen's or Naruto's ire, only ever doing what the Kage asked of him regarding black ops. Naruto still thought her Jiji was being much too lenient, but she promised herself not to interfere with things more than necessary.

Rinsing the remnants of scentless shampoo and conditioner from her sodden locks, Naruto rung out her hair, twisted off her shower head, and stepped out of the tub.

The blonde returned to her bedroom, slipping on fresh undergarments, tied her hair in a low tail, wrapped up Sakura's arm, and got dressed.

After a few minutes, Naruto sheathed her sword on her back, pulled on her long gloves, and snapped on her arm guards.

The blue eyed woman donned her bone white cloak, pulling the hood up and flaring her chakra to activate the seals that made it appear like her hood was full of shadows, allowing people to only see the color of her eyes through the darkness.

Her eyes changed to red when she used the chakra Kurama had given her the last time they'd spoken. Like the fox, all henges and genjutsu except for ones created by a powerful sharingan were useless against Naruto. But only when her red eyes were activated.

The blonde could also still transform into all of Kurama's tailed influence forms, sense negative emotions, and use chakra arms. When he had given the blonde the chakra of his tails, it had become her chakra, acting as a sort of second chakra source she could call on at any time, and use if her original source was exhausted.

It was always sealed deeply away within the seal her world's Yondaime had placed upon her at birth. Though, it had altered slightly, seeing as there was no bijuu present in the space designed to hold one.

Naruto's seal had mutated into a secondary source. If one were to peer at the "seal", they'd see an entirely different chakra network coiled up impossibly tight behind her first network's core upon her abdomen.

This was not the only way Naruto's seal had changed.

The shape remained the same, a swirling symbol surrounded by outreaching prongs. That was where the familiarity ended. The symbol was now a gruesome sight. When Kurama had been ripped from Naruto, her flesh had been scorched, time turning the insignias into a smooth, flat, and pinkish keloid.

The blonde hadn't used her tailed forms since her world's Fourth War, but sometimes she used Kurama's gifted chakra enough to have her old whiskers appear on her cheeks, and her features shift to a more feral theme.

During the Fourth War, Naruto's face had been burned completely away, and when Kurama regenerated it, her whiskers hadn't been there any longer. Only when she used his- _her_ second chakra, did they appear.

The blonde caught the three plastic wrapped rice balls Obito tossed her as she strode past the kitchen.

"I heard Menma found a note with instructions on how to do the shadow clone jutsu in his mailbox yesterday." The Uchiha said, washing his hands casually.

Naruto snorted.

"How can you hear anything when no one besides me and the Third know you're alive?"

"You're right." Obito quipped turning around to smile wryly at the bright haired woman. "What I meant to say was, before I met up with you yesterday I asked the Third how to do the shadow clone jutsu. He knew I wanted it for Menma because that boy needs all the help he can get, gave it to me, and I slipped it into the kid's mailbox."

"Did he master it?" Naruto asked, hand on the knob of her front door.

Obito shrugged. "If he's anything like you, probably."

Naruto nodded. "Will you be here when I get back?"

"Nope," Obito said, stretching his arms. "I'll be checking in on Suna. I wonder if Orochimaru has gotten to Rasa yet?"

 _'Ah yes, Orochimaru. I still need to decide what to do with him don't I?'_ She thought. _'I'll bring it up with Jiji later...'_

With that, the Uchiha swirled out of existence, leaving Naruto to her thoughts as she opened her front door, and walked out onto the large branch that doubled as her porch.

Her house was basically just a large log cabin, but it was still apart of the tree it was in. She'd paid Tenzo a very pretty penny to make it for her. Though, she'd had to install all of the pipes and wiring so she could have fresh water to drink, hot water to bathe in, and heat to cook with.

The blonde closed the door behind her, and hopped off the side of the large tree that her house sat in.

Her cloak billowed around her violently as her body fell through the wind resistance around her. The surrounding vegetation was nothing but an assemble of blurring browns and greens as she fell, a pleasant and light feeling fluttering within her stomach.

The cloaked blonde flipped around, channeling her wind natured chakra into her feet to literally hop on the air around her, speedily making her way through the Forest of Death.

Naruto zipped through the trees, only slowing down when she met the edge of the forest to perch on the high barbed fence keeping the animals out of the village.

The woman sitting on the fence eating a syrupy stick of dango startled, a kunai flinging from her fingertips before she could think better of it.

Naruto didn't even bother to dodge it, simply forcing wind chakra out of her coils to negate the weapon's path, causing it to whizz past her harmlessly and lodge itself into a tall tree behind her.

Anko narrowed her hazel eyes at the cloaked blonde, wondering how she missed.

"Wind chakra." The blonde supplied, flickering with shunshin.

"Hmph!" Anko huffed, tossing her dango stick over her shoulder and hopping off of the fence. "If you didn't have such a sexy ass under that cloak, I'd have killed you a long time ago!"

Naruto reappeared outside of the Third's office, flaring her chakra slightly to notify him who stood outside his door.

"Ah, Naruto my girl," Came his kind muffled voice. "Come in come in."

The hidden blonde was not amused to sense several other chakra signatures already inside.

The blonde strode in, ignoring all of the eyes slicing into her cloaked form.

"Hokage-sama," She greeted formally, bowing slightly.

Hiruzen waved it away, motioning for her to enter completely. She did so, stopping when she faced his desk alongside all of the other Jounin that he'd called into his office.

"Continue," The Hokage ordered.

"Err, right." Asuma said, shifting his cigarette to the right side of his mouth. "After effectively trapping one of my clones, Team 10 passed."

"Team eleven failed spectacularly." Genma finished blandly.

"Right, so," Hiruzen stood up, folding his hands behind his back. "Now that we've got that all out of the way, I would like to explain why I've called in Naruto-chan."

The Third turned to Naruto. "So, teams 7, 8, and 10 are the only cells that passed the full graduation exam, and they have to do with why you've been called in."

Naruto nodded in understanding, face blank even though she knew no one could see it. Her stomach twisted with dread, knowing where the situation was heading.

The Third turned back to the Jounin, dismissing all but Kakashi, Kurenai, and Asuma.

"You three, congratulations on your passing teams."

Kurenai was the only one who looked happy about it.

"I know what everyone's been calling Naruto." The Third continued after a moment, peaking the blonde's interest. "But she is not a hunter nin. Konoha does not have a hunter nin program."

 _'Yeah, that's what Root is for.'_ Naruto thought bitterly.

"Contrary to popular belief, Naruto is a normal elite Jounin, despite the type of missions that I assign to her. She gets those kinds of jobs only because they are well handled with her expertise."

Asuma and Kurenai were quite noticeably surprised by the news, having at least thought the girl was Anbu based on her less than social behavior and solemn visage.

Kakashi, well, Naruto could never really read that dark gray eye. He seemed perfectly aloof as usual. Though, she was aware that her dismissive behavior was irksome to him, despite the fact that they hadn't interacted much since she'd arrived in the new time and dimension.

She knew it was petty, but she was amused by annoying him. Call it pay back for all the crap his counterpart had put her through, the lazy lovable bastard.

Kakashi pulled out his offensive little book, making the blonde smile behind her hood. Knowing he was exactly the same man she'd known in her own world gave the blonde a sad and nostalgic feeling.

 _'Sensei never changes.'_ She thought fondly.

"So," Hiruzen said, bringing her back to the present. "Please be rid of whatever assumptions you have of Naruto-chan. I would prefer you be on good terms with the woman who is going to train your Genin alongside you."

"What!?" Kurenai blurted, nose wrinkling in distaste.

Kakashi's eye became even more half lidded, his shoulders sagging a bit more, thinking of all the drama to come, and Asuma sighed deeply, pulling out a new cigarette. He just knew his laid back life would be taking a 180 very soon.

Naruto hadn't reacted at all, but she had to try really hard not to. Especially when the blasted old man smirked at her from beneath his stupid hat. He was _way_ too pleased with himself.

"You are all dismissed." The Third said with finality, and then tacked on, "Perhaps you should all get to know each other better. Go out tonight. Have a few drinks, hm?" He suggested. But they all knew he wasn't really suggesting anything.

They would be going out that night. Ugh.

 _'This isn't over old man.'_ Naruto thought. _'This is not over…'_

* * *

 **I know this was kind of dense for a first chapter, and for that, I'm sorry. Hope you liked it though. XD**


	3. The Witch's House

**I don't own Naruto or the cover art.**

 **Don't know who drew that actually.**

* * *

 _"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."_

 _-Oscar Wilde_

* * *

She worked in silence, a beautiful pale face forming before her.

There was half smoked cigarette tucked behind one of her ears, a vice she took pleasure in at her most stressful of times.

The habit began when Shikamaru had lied crushed under a boulder in a realm that rained meteorites, blood dribbling down the right side of his mouth as he quietly asked Naruto to reach in his left breast pocket.

She'd done as he asked, pulling out the pack of smokes hidden there and Asuma's lighter, trying to quell the endless flow of tears welling.

 _"Smoke with me just this once, Naruto."_

 _"Don't do this Shika." She begged._

 _The lazy boy simply chuckled, speckling his lips with crimson._

 _"Troublesome blonde." He scolded his friend. "Just do as I ask, hm?"_

 _Wordlessly, Naruto lit the cigarette, and brought it to her lips, taking a long drag, ignoring the way it scalded her lungs, ignoring the Rabbit Goddess who loomed silently above from behind, solemnly watching as yet another one of Naruto's friends slowly departed._

 _"Now exhale." Shikamaru rasped, more blood bubbling between his lips, trickling down his chin, hazel eyes lidded heavily as he was slowly lulled to a grim slumber._

 _The blonde did so, a plume of white jetting from her trembling lips._

 _"Give me a hit." The Nara murmured, his eyes oddly satisfied he could share this with Naruto, as Asuma had been the only person he'd been willing to smoke to. To smoke for._

 _Naruto pulled the stick away from her lips and pressed it to Shikamaru's._

 _The teen's red speckled mouth opened slightly. He took a long drag, surprisingly not faltering at all before Naruto pulled it away, allowing him to exhale smoke._

 _Shikamaru had smoked in his grief, giving his Sensei a final goodbye._

 _Now he smoked for Naruto, feeling grief for leaving her. His dear friend._

 _"Dammit." Naruto gritted, feeling a piercing hopelessness beyond the marrow of her bones. "Dammit all."_

 _She had lost so many friends and comrades, and she could no longer scream in loss. She could no longer give them false hope with flowery words of saving them._

 _All she could do was stay by them until they left for the Pure Land._

 _"T-troublesome… looks like…" Shikamaru mumbled, hazel eyes now completely closed. "I won't get to see you become Hokage."_

 _Naruto's heart stuttered as she watched his face relax, a small smile at the corners of his bloodied lips._

 _'You will be Hokage.' Is what they both knew he hadn't said._

 _The blonde's face twisted with grief, and she stuck the smouldering cigarette between her lips._

 _"Looks like you won't be my Jounin Commander after all, Troublesome Nara." She murmured, tears trailing down her face, not even hinting at the absolute despair that crushed the inside of her chest._

 _Naruto smoked the cigarette all the way down to the filter, and then she stood up to fight._

The blonde looked up, sensing the intruding chakra natures that had been at the entrance of the forest awhile back lingering outside her front door.

The blonde's soft gray coated paint brush faltered mid-stroke, stopping the creation of wispy hair belonging to the person staring back at her from the face of her canvas.

She wiped the paint brush off on a hanky hanging from one of her pockets, setting both items aside as she made her way to the door, pulling it open just as one of her visitors began to knock softly.

* * *

Her sunshine locks were spilling down the back of her neck in lazy tufts from the messy knot they were tied in at the back of her head, long bangs still framing and falling into her solemn face, but mostly kept at bay by the garish orange bandana tied around her head, ends sticking up like two curious rabbit ears.

She was wearing a black pair of sweatpants-like overalls that stopped just below the knee, held in place by hidden elastic over a sleeveless white shirt. Her feet were slipped into simple one strap orange sandals.

Naruto pulled the door open wider in silent invitation, illuminating her paint speckled front with moonlight, turning around and walking back into her home, giving her guest a full view of something else.

She had the Uzumaki symbol emblazoned on her back.

Kakashi sharply wondered why that emblem was on something that belonged to Naruto that wasn't a Jounin vest.

 _'She has no clan name, so it's very plausible that she's loosely related to them. But why wasn't it mentioned before?'_ He thought. _'Then again, it's not exactly common knowledge that Menma is directly related to that clan either. Most people think the boy was simply given a random last name.'_

Asuma and Kurenai shuffled into the cozy abode after the Copy nin, Anko following behind them, as she demanded to be allowed to tag along when the three fresh Jounin Sensei told her they were entering the forest in search of Naruto.

 _'I suppose I'll have to question her about her relationship with the Uzumaki Clan later. Because now that I think about it, when she isn't hiding behind that hood… she looks almost uncannily similar to Sensei's son.'_

Kakashi's gray eye narrowed slightly as said blonde disappeared into the back of her tree house, presumably to put on something more warm.

Seeing her in actual lighting was new, so as absurd as it was, Kakashi really hadn't seen the blonde as clearly until this point.

He was literally just now noticing that she looked like Menma, and by extension, Minato-sensei.

"What a charming home." Kurenai murmured, pulling the suspicious Hatake from his musings.

With that, everyone began observing in a distinctly nosey fashion.

Naruto's home was neat. Nothing out of place in the tidy space, and in the center of the living room/kitchen there was a canvas set up, a wooden stool with an easel and assemble of paintbrushes set atop it set to the side.

Anko was crudely studying the painting, the other three Jounin doing the same, but were being less obvious about it.

The painting was of two beautiful girls around the age of eighteen. One had long dark hair, and pale Hyuga eyes. The other had lightly colored hair that was cut in a spiky boyish style, sticking up every which way, and sad fair eyes.

The painting was mostly set in a monochrome sort of theme, so their coloring was indistinguishable.

The only startling coloring in the piece was red.

The women were dressed in Chunin uniforms that were torn to tatters, and covered in blood splotches.

They were standing side by side at an angle, so that their arms were touching, and they were both reaching out of the painting towards an unknown person, expressions pleading, and full of love.

They were begging to be saved, but at the same time, they were apologizing.

They were saying goodbye.

The most alarming thing though, was the side of their faces. The left side of the long haired girl's face was falling apart, crumbling to ashes, revealing the milky white bone of her skull. The left side of the spiky haired girl's face was in the same state.

"They both wear such haunting expressions..." Kurenai murmured, ruby eyes thoughtful.

"That's because they knew they were going to die, and they accepted it."

"Holy shit!"

Naruto simply caught Anko's wrist, which held a kunai that the snake mistress was attempting to stab her in the throat with.

"Don't sneak up on me like that." The purple haired woman huffed, hazel eyes narrowed.

"I walked right up behind you." Naruto intoned.

The blonde was now wearing a black long coat. Which nearly reached her feet.

Subtly, Kakashi inhaled, eye widening at the scent that clung to the fabric.

The coat obviously didn't fit her. And Naruto didn't smell like pinecones. She smelled like the forest. Like tall gentle yet strong trees. Perfect considering the village she lived in. Though Kakashi knew quite well that she could hide that scent in a split second and conceal herself to the point you'd never know she was present unless you were looking right at her.

There was a slightly dark scent lurking beneath that of the pine wrapped around her usual forest, something distinctly male. Smokey, like a hint of flame. Just like Naruto's forest held a hint of autumn winds.

The coat belonged to a man.

A man's whose scent Kakashi didn't recognize.

"Why are you even here?" Naruto continued tonelessly, making the Hatake's sharp gaze slice into her as she drew silently closer. "I was under the impression that you hadn't even been nominated as a Jounin sensei."

Anko bristled for a moment.

 _'Well, it's not like I know the scent of everyone in the village.'_ Kakashi reminded himself. _'So what if I don't know the person she's wearing the coat of? I suppose this just bothers me because it's entirely unexpected. No one was aware she was close enough to someone to share clothing. Maybe she has spies and the coat belongs to one of them? It would make sense. How could one person know as much as she does with only one pair of eyes? But then again, why would a mere spy leave his coat for her to use?'_

Asuma blinked from the sidelines, unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. "That's the most I've ever heard you speak outside of work."

Naruto shrugged.

"I don't speak unless it's necessary."

"Maa, shall we go?" Kakashi spoke up, face buried in his trademark orange book, silently noting that she was speaking slightly less formally than usual. Well, as Asuma pointed out, she didn't speak much to begin with, so it's not like the Hatake had endless examples of her speech patterns.

But _still._

Naruto simply gestured for the Jounin to leave her home, and they did so, Naruto leaving last to activate the locking seals on her home.

 _'Well she's certainly thorough.'_ The scarecrow mused. _'So thorough she would have noticed that the coat that is so obviously not hers would make all of us curious.'_

With a subtle roll of his eyes, Kakashi thought, _'I'm thinking in circles.'_

Kakashi followed after Asuma as the man stepped off of Naruto's treehouse porch and lazily hopped to the next tree over, followed by Anko and Kurenai.

 _'I'll just have to ask her to sate my curiosity. Even if I'm certain she won't do anything but be more cryptic than me on one of my good days.'_

This thought had the man's eye flattening, unamused.

"So like, where are we going?" Anko asked, hands tucked into her trench coat pockets as they all hopped leisurely through the massive trees of Shi no Mori.

"Anko," Kurenai sighed. "I told you we're going out for drinks."

 _'She wouldn't have worn the coat if it would expose an important secret she wasn't confident she could keep. So obviously Hokage-sama knows about the man it belongs to, because again, Naruto would be aware that I would notice the scent on it isn't hers. So…'_

"Oh yeah." The Mitarashi said, hazel eyes narrowing as her mouth twitched into a smirk. She slowed her hopping a bit, so she fell into step beside Naruto, who was purposefully traveling behind her fellow Jounin. "You ever get plastered Naruto?"

"Naruto-san, please excuse me if I'm being too frank, but who's coat is that?" Kurenai suddenly asked, unknowingly making Kakashi inwardly jump in anticipation as she ignored Anko.

"One of my acquaintances visited me a while ago. He left it behind, as he tends to get into scuffles that end with his clothes mostly destroyed." The blonde intoned.

"So, do you ever get messed up on a Friday or not?" Anko asked.

"Who's this acquaintance?" Asuma chipped in, following his peers' lead and ignoring the dango lover. "Anyone we know?"

"No." Naruto said. "He's just someone that visits me and Hokage-sama on occasion."

"You guys are so rude." Anko pouted.

It was then Kakashi knew that Naruto was perfectly aware of the kinds of thoughts he'd been having, as well as the fact that his fellow Jounin were thinking similar things.

She'd effectively assured them that the owner of the coat did know the Hokage, and that she was within her right to be acquainted with said owner. She had also silently told them to back off with the questions, as she, the Hokage's unofficial Hunter Nin, was close to this person, and obviously had no intention of them ever being just as close.

Only she and the Hokage knew this person, and Naruto was making sure they knew it was to stay that way.

Despite being the same rank, Kakashi knew Naruto was stronger than him. Yes, he could probably put up a hell of a fight, and mortally wound her. But he could not defeat her at his current level. Peace time hadn't done him any favors as of late in terms of sharpening his skills.

On top of that, Naruto was a symbol of fear for a reason.

The shadow she cast was one that was darker than darkness itself, and she was entirely imperial without arrogance.

Kakashi was not ashamed to admit that she made him as wary as she did curious.

He knew this was the same for his fellow Jounin.

Though they were not Jounin without reason. They could take a hint, and the thread of conversation died.

No one questioned her on the matter further.

"So, how'd they get an antisocial hermit like you to come out to play?" Anko asked deviously, thoroughly breaking the icy silence that had descended upon the elites.

"Hokage-sama ordered them to get to know me because I was assigned the task to assist training their Genin."

Anko's eyes bulged. "What! _You!?"_

"Anko!" Kurenai exclaimed, appalled by her friend's rude behavior.

Asuma sighed in exasperation, telling with no words that he didn't know what his old man was smoking either.

"Yes," Naruto said. "Me."

It was pitch black out, well past eleven o'clock because Kakashi had been two hours late to meet up with Asuma and Kurenai to pick up Naruto.

The entire trip to the red light district had been utterly uncomfortable, because Naruto simply oozed "unapproachable".

The bar frequented by many Konoha Jounin and Chunin had plunged into dead silence as soon as the sunshine blonde stepped foot across the threshold.

Everyone was watching the booth she sat at with the Jounin Sensei like hawks, and were doing a really bad job at pretending that they weren't eavesdropping horribly.

"So…" Asuma muttered into his drink, brown eyes shooting up and zeroing in on the half smoked cigarette tucked behind the blonde's right ear. "You smoke?"

Kurenai looked away from their table in embarrassment. Her red eyes simply said straight up how badly she wanted to jump off of something high and end it all.

"You like orange?" Anko piped up, right cheek resting on her relaxed fist, elbow positioned casually atop the creaky bar table. "You don't seem like the type to like a lot of bright colors."

Naruto blankly stared into the glass of water she had ordered when they arrived and still hadn't touched.

Her hair was still in its messy knot, the majority of her obscuring bangs held back by her fluorescent orange bandana.

"You also seem comfortable in clothes that I'd never even thought you'd heard of." The Mitarashi continued, eyes dipping down to study Naruto's paint splattered overalls. "By the way, how are you pulling off looking that good with such a flat expression?"

"Yes, I smoke Asuma-san. Not very often though." The blonde finally responded. "Anko-san, there are many things you don't know about me. Please don't assume I simply stare at the wall when I'm not on missions."

Asuma snorted a laugh into his drink, looking up with wide brown eyes to study the solemn blonde who was, ironically staring at the wall behind him. When he noticed she wasn't going to acknowledge him unless he said something, he pulled some smokes out of his flak jacket pocket and placed them in his lap, foregoing pulling one out when he caught Kurenai sending him an unimpressed look before looking back at Naruto.

"Ugh, you're so vague about everything." Anko groaned, arm dropping and forehead banging in frustration atop the bar table. "You're not gonna be able to work with a bunch of brats if you walk around with a stick up your ass and talk like some sort of robot."

Kurenai did a double take when Naruto's eyes crinkled briefly and her mouth twitched just a tiny bit.

Everyone at the table had missed it, but after Kurenai had moved past her mortification, (and glared at Asuma), she had began studying the blonde from across the table.

"Did you just… smile?" Kurenai asked quietly, blinking at the young woman's expressionless visage.

"What!" Anko's head shot up from the table, openly gawping at the blue eyed Jounin. Asuma stopped fiddling with the the pack of smokes in his lap, and Kakashi paused, dark eye leaving his book to study the woman as well.

"You can actually change expression!? No, you can _smile_?" The Mitarashi exclaimed. "What's funny? I'll make you laugh too!"

"Anko…" Kurenai sighed at the torture expert's antics. "She didn't actually smile or anything. Her mouth just sort of twitched, and it was you who made it happen in the first place."

"Alright this is getting ridiculous."

The entire bar pierced their eyes into the person who'd uttered the bland statement.

It wasn't emotionless, it held expression. Not exactly irritation, but exasperation.

Kakashi actually set his book down, grey eye blinking at Naruto as she studied them all, eyelids drooping over her blue eyes, lips pulled into an unamused line.

"You all do realize that I'm a human being, so I have emotions." Naruto said, still speaking in flat tones. "But forget about that. I'm going to say right now, that I'm not looking for friends. I don't need comrades. Hokage-sama thinks that having me teach your Genin alongside you will change the way that I act among other things, but it's not going to."

Everyone stared, stunned.

No one moved even when Naruto stood up, slipping her hands into the pockets of her baggy long coat.

She shrugged.

"I'll loosen up around the Genin, but I won't pamper anyone." The blonde stated. "I've been given a task by the Hokage, and I'll complete it. That is the extent of our relationship, and that is all it will ever be."

Naruto turned away from the table, and began walking away.

Her face fell back into its blank state as she went, stopping mid-stride when Anko's hand clamped down onto her shoulder a little too aggressively.

The blonde didn't fight the purple haired woman as she whirled her around to glare at her.

"Now where the hell do you think you're going?" The Mitarashi demanded. "You can't just admit that you're not some mindless puppet and walk off like that! After all these years everyone thought you were cold as ice, and you're just now saying you're not? How are we supposed to react to that? And what the hell is your problem blowing everyone off like that?"

"I admitted to having emotions." Naruto said blankly. "And I do. I enjoy many things. I like having fun."

" _See!_ " Anko said. "It's not that hard to talk to people. You just have to _do_ it."

"I enjoy chopping meat." Naruto continued, voice devoid of all feeling, the room seeming to gain several degrees as her killing intent swelled to monstrous proportions, asphyxiating anyone below Jounin. "That's all any of you are. Meatbags. As soon as you show signs of foul play, I'll be there to chop you to pieces."

Anko flinched and stumbled back as Naruto's eyes flashed red, slicing into her face.

"I smiled," Naruto continued emotionlessly, eyes still a cruel vermillion hue, "Because I was thinking about how fun it would be to see what your insides look like."

Naruto turned away again and walked off, no one seeing her expression as she released a small chilling chuckle, form flickering in the night.

There was a long stretch of silence.

"Man she is messed up." Someone shuddered.

Kurenai and Asuma shared a concerned look, already thinking about the risk of having someone like that around young impressionable ninja.

Anko sucked in a shaky breath, rolling her shoulders back and trying to forget the absolute terror she felt after staring into those savage red eyes.

The Mitarashi ambled back over to the Jounin sensei booth, sliding in beside Kakashi, sitting across from Kurenai and Asuma.

"Are you alright Anko-chan?" The genjutsu mistress asked in concern.

The purple haired woman blinked slowly, before she nodded.

"Yeah…" She rasped. "Yeah. I'm fine."

"She's lying."

Kakashi's tablemates looked at him in question, but he was already peering back into his book, dark eye following the ink printed across the dog eared pages.

"I could read absolutely nothing when she said she enjoyed killing, meaning she was masking her emotions, something we all just discovered she is constantly doing. So, instead of behaving under the assumption that she feels nothing at all, keep in mind that she is just frighteningly good at hiding."

"But if she showed no emotion admitting to something like that, doesn't that mean she's just a sociopath?" Kurenai asked, dark brows furrowed in thought.

"Nah," Asuma said, sticking a fresh cigarette between his lips, giving up on manners. "A sociopath simply feels no remorse. She'd be a psychopath for enjoying killing. And if she felt the need to mask her emotions while saying such convoluted things, she probably wasn't telling the truth."

"Man…" Anko laughed weakly. "She must really not want to get close to people."

"Yup." Kakashi chirped, flipping to the next page. "We're dealing with a master of dodging questions here."

Kurenai sighed in irritation when Kakashi's visible eye arched into that infuriating smile of his.

"Great," Asuma muttered. "Someone even worse with interaction than you Hatake."

Kakashi simply read his book, flipping the pages without a care in the world.

* * *

Naruto zipped through the night, using her hand to briefly smother away the smile threatening to plaster across the lack of expression it took years for her to perfect.

The look on their faces...

Naruto would cackle like an old witch when she got home.

 _'Take that Jiji!'_ She thought, inwardly sticking out her tongue. _'Force me to socialize huh? See if they ever wanna be left in the same room with me now.'_

"Maa maa Naru-chan, that was mean of you."

Naruto wrangled in the irritation that swelled from being intruded upon, smoothly stopping her lightning quick roof hopping to turn and face the one who'd followed her from the bar.

"Uchiha." She greeted icily, having wanted more time to silently preen under the glory of her recent shenanigans.

Obsidian eyes twinkled in amusement, even as a pale face twisted into an exaggerated pout. "Mou Naru, you're so cold to me."

"What do you want Shisui?" Naruto asked blankly. _'Keep calling me "chan" bud, you'll see exactly why my moniker rhyme's with bitch.'_

The blonde instantly zeroed in on the young man when his cheerful visage morphed into a serious frown.

"I heard about the mission assigned to you."

 _'Ah, so this is about Sasuke.'_ She thought. _'Typical.'_

"You're concerned." Naruto stated.

"Yes, well, I know you'll be working with him, and I want you to understand that he's different than your average Genin." Shisui said, frown softening to a slight downturn of his brows and lips.

"If by that you mean stewing in hatred, then you are correct." Naruto said, turning her back and walking away.

"Don't just walk away." Shisui said lowly. "I'm serious. You can't treat him like a child, you can't teach him the same way you would a child."

"The boy will learn whatever it is I teach him, or he will suffer for his ignorance later." Naruto said, form flickering with shunshin.

Shisui scowled, obsidian eyes staring into the spot she once occupied.

"Let's just hope you know what you're doing, Naruto."

* * *

The next day, Naruto was wearing her dark bodysuit, mesh armour, and arm and shin guards. She donned her cloak and pulled up the hood, heading out of her home with her claymore sheathed on her back.

She reached training ground three in absolute silence, her hidden eyes boring into the three children across the freshly trimmed grass, positioned in various stances before three large upright logs.

Naruto remembered those logs, and how once upon a time, she'd been tied to the one in the middle.

Sakura's hair was still long, and she was standing before the middle log with her hands clasped in front of her chest. At first glance she appeared nervous about her first day of training, and she was, but she was also hopelessly annoyed about Kakashi being late again.

To her left was Sasuke, who had a dark look on his face, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned his back against his log, one foot keeping him balanced.

To the pinkette's right, was the one who held Naruto's place in the world.

Menma Uzumaki.

He was a short boy with wild sunny blonde hair kept out of his eyes by his shiny new forehead protector.

From what Naruto knew, this version of herself was slightly more skilled than she had been at that age. Just good enough to pass by the skin of his teeth.

He wore a mulish expression, his arms crossed as well, baby blue eyes narrowed in irritation as he waited for the arrival of his silver haired sensei.

"He's late!" Menma huffed, blonde brows caving into a scowl.

"Shut up Menma!" Sakura yelled, taking a wild swing at his head, surprised when the blonde's look became even more sour and he tilted his head away from her fist.

The pinkette stared in surprise when the boy glared at her and looked away, blue eyes on the treeline.

Sakura shrugged, assuming it was merely chance that the idiot had dodged her and decided to admire Sasuke's profile.

Said raven had watched the commotion from the corner of his eye, and he seemed momentarily pleased that the dobe could act like he had some semblance of skill.

With an inaudible sigh, Naruto prepared herself for a day full of reining in her nostalgia, melancholy, annoyance, and praying for the patience only war could teach her.

 _'Time to begin a test of my own.'_

* * *

 **Yeah, it's back. And I couldn't have finished this chapter without the support of my good friend and fellow Shisui lover Ninjazzz.**

 **Seriously she is the best bud ever, and I'm a lucky turd to have her. XD**

 **Well anyways, hopefully this was well received and I put some light onto what kind of person this femNaruto is.**


	4. The Witch's Bite

**This chapter is dedicated to Quill Q for being so patient with me and my hiatus, as well as sticking with me.**

 **Ninjazzz, girl I didn't forget you. Loves you lots my friend.**

 **I don't own Naruto.**

* * *

 _Soldier keep on marching on, head down til the work is done. Waiting on that morning sun…_

 _Soldier keep on marching on._

 _-Fleurie, Soldier_

* * *

Shisui remembered when he first met Naruto.

He'd pierced the surface of Naka river, and used chakra to exhilarate his descent as he drifted deeper into the icy depths. He'd rigged his chakra with a forbidden suicide jutsu. As soon as he ceased life, his body would be obliterated, the tiny remnants remaining scattered at the bottom of the river floor, nearly untraceable.

Shisui was blind, his right eye ripped from him by a man he'd always been wary to trust, and the left removed by his own hands, given to his best friend.

She'd dove in after he'd been under for more than two and a half minutes, only having about ten seconds before it was over. He sensed a disturbance in the waters, and the next thing he knew, still under, an unknown pressed breath to his lips, and breathed life into his drowning lungs. She hauled him up, he'd felt her fist in the front of his shirt, and with a great heave, they were both soaring out of the water.

He'd felt them shoot up, literally flying, before they landed on softly swaying grass, and he was tossed onto his side, left to the cold of the night breeze. He hadn't breathed in any water, so there was none to cough up. But he gasped for breath violently, his chest shivering, sore lungs dragging in chilled air.

He hadn't needed his eyes to know that the stranger had returned him to the cliff overlooking Naka river.

His keen senses told him that Itachi was long gone with the sharingan he'd left in his hands.

Shisui was unsure of what his cousin would've done from there.

The young man chuckled, a quiet bleak sound not quite as unlike him as many would think.

"My my, look at me, up here brooding." The Uchiha murmured, the sun stretching over the horizon, bathing his form in warm golden rays as he stood at the very edge of a familiar cliff, dark eyes overlooking the expanse of waters below.

Naka river held many memories for Shisui, but the most glaring one was the reason for his current somber mood.

 _"What are you doing? Get up." A young woman intoned. "There is too much to do to die."_

 _Her words bit him, tore down into his flesh and made his heart bleed._

 _"Who are you?" Shisui demanded._

 _"What's it to a man who wants to die?"_

 _The Uchiha gritted his teeth._

 _He heard the stranger kneel down, a soft hand brushed his right cheek, and a bandaged one brushed his left._

 _Shisui bit back a pained hiss when his left eye socket was peeled open by the same gentle hand that had just caressed his face._

 _"What are you doing?" He tensed to struggle, to wrap his hands around the pulse he sensed at the stranger's unseen throat._

 _His wound stung, what little river water had intruded into the gaping hole trickled out._

 _"Calm down Uchiha." The woman said flatly. "If I wanted you harmed, I'd have just left you to drown."_

 _Even so, Shisui's pulse quickened, but he soon realized the stranger was just cleaning his wound. He felt the sting of medical ointment, biting his lip when the stranger's finger dipped into his eye socket to spread the healing salve._

 _Shisui's hands were moving before he even registered what he was doing. Her soft hand was still cupping his face while the bandaged one cleaned his vacant eye socket._

 _The Uchiha's hands grasps both of the stranger's wrists, tightening in warning._

 _"Stop." The blind teen commanded. "Not that it isn't kind of you to help me, but this is the path I chose. What good would I be now anyway. A shinobi with no eyes? I won't be able to change anything."_

 _"You're stupid to think Itachi could do anything without you." The stranger stated, causing Shisui to stiffen. "I know you feel it. It's too big of a burden. He can't do it alone."_

 _Of course he knew._

 _He just… he just hoped._

 _Honestly, what did Shisui tell Danzo before the man ripped out his eye?_

 ** _"There is no true peace through suppression by force!"_**

 _And Shisui had been willing to die knowing, knowing that Itachi would bring peace the only way he knew how._

 _He was a prodigy shinobi after all._

 _Itachi Uchiha was a splendid killer, and no clan would rebel if they were dead._

 _"You have an idea don't you? What Itachi will be ordered to do?" The stranger murmured, pulling one of their wrists free from his steadily slackening grip to resume their task of cleaning one of his twin wounds. "He won't protest much. After all, a clan, or a whole village? To someone who is thirteen, which would seem the lesser evil, despite the fact that both are horrible? Which would a thirteen year old do to protect their brother?"_

 _"God damn it." Shisui whispered._

 _"Yes," The stranger confirmed. "Now, will you lay down and die, or will you go on?"_

 _'What am I doing?' He wondered. 'Am I really leaving such a burden to Itachi? Have I really endured all that a shinobi can endure?'_

 _Of course he hadn't. And a total stranger had to force him to realize this before it finally registered._

 _Right then, right there Shisui made a decision_.

 _He would not go quietly._

 _He would not succumb._

 _Konoha was his village._

 _Itachi was his cousin, and the Uchiha were his family._

 _'I will not take this quietly!'_

 _"What did you say? Before, I mean." Shisui whispered._

 _"There is too much to do to die." The stranger whispered back._

 _The Uchiha returned the small smile he heard in the woman's voice._

 _"Yeah," The Uchiha breathed. "You're right."_

 _With that, the stranger inserted something into his freshly cleaned socket._

 _Shisui gasped, feeling warm healing chakra melding his severed ocular nerves together._

 _"This is my…"_

 _"I thought you may need it." The stranger said._

 _He could see._

 _Good Kami Shisui could see!_

 _The Uchiha's left eye was wide open, the sclera webbed with stressed red veins, straining against the cold night air._

 _"Where did you get this?" Shisui snapped, his returned eye glaring into the cloaked white figure before him._

 _The hood was dark, only revealing the sky blue color of the woman's eyes._

 _"Don't give me that look." The woman intoned. "I didn't hurt Itachi, I simply intercepted him and took it. He's being briefed on a new mission as we speak, probably worried sick about the lost treasure his supposedly dead friend gave him."_

 _Shisui tensed once more._

 _"I don't see him just letting you go after stealing it."_

 _"No, but he knew he had no hope of defeating me. Of course, he didn't know that I would never kill him, so he fled, cursing me to all hell."_

 _'He must be devastated…' Shisui thought mournfully._

 _"Hm." The stranger hummed, going about cleaning his other socket, giving him a painful awakening from his grim musings. "I also took the liberty of getting your right eye back."_

 _After a moment, said stolen orb was inserted back into his face, and soothed with a golden glowing hand._

 _"By now, Hokage-sama would have told Itachi that I am a deep undercover agent, and that your eye is in good hands." The stranger said. "He will be informed that you are not deceased."_

 _Shisui gawped at the hooded woman. He was still trying to figure out how she'd gotten back his right eye. Itachi was one thing, a Kage level nin was another._

 _"How…" Shisui trailed off. "Who are you?"_

 _"How?" The figure snorted, starling the young man. "I ripped it out of Danzo's face. Who? I'm Naruto."_

 _"Naruto…" Shisui tried the strange name. It suited her, such an odd name for the odd woman that came from absolutely nowhere to aid him._

 _"Why did you…"_

 _"I want to prevent a bleak future brought about by stupid Uchiha that mean well, but only bring about destruction."_

 _Despite the circumstances, Shisui bristled._

 _"Hey!"_

 _"Your eyes are alive again." Naruto murmured, her voice once again holding the hint of a smile. "They had nearly died, but there's light again."_

 _Shisui stared at the hooded woman, illuminated by the moon above, midnight breeze ruffling the hem of her long cloak._

 _Without thinking, Shisui sat up, reaching out, and took hold of either side of her hood, sensing in his bones that the woman could end him in the blink of an eye if she so pleased._

 _The Uchiha pushed the white fabric off of her head, hair the color of sunlight springing forward, unruly blonde bangs falling into and on either side of a slightly tan face. He let his hands fall, instead resting on her forearms as she kneeled between his spread legs._

 _The moonlight touched her, setting her jewel-like gaze aglow. Shisui absently noted that she was around 18, his age, and quite pretty. But he didn't really care about that though._

 _This person gave him back his eyes._

 _They gave him another chance to save his clan as well as his beloved village._

 _"Yes," Shisui finally said, unable to tear his gaze from her haunting person._

 _They both sat there staring at one another, the only witness to the moment was the starless blanket of sky above. "I am very much alive."_

 _Finally, Shisui glimpsed a tiny twitch, he saw that hint of a smile._

 _It gave him hope._

 _Despite the grim air she gave off, Shisui saw past that. He saw the morning sun peeking past the bloody horizon, and he grinned, because the sun had saved him._

 _Shisui Uchiha was pulled from a watery grave, and given life._

 _It wouldn't be in vain._

"Hm." The young man hummed, midnight eyes crinkling at the corners, lips hitching up slightly as he noticed the sun was up.

 _'Knowing Kakashi-senpai, Sasuke-kun has probably been waiting for his new sensei to show up for hours.'_

Shisui chuckled.

 _'That kid won't know what to do with Kakashi or Naruto.'_ The Uchiha thought. _'I was worried, but remembering the kind of person she hides behind that cold exterior… I know Sasuke will be in good hands.'_

Shisui turned away from the view of his favorite spot in the village, his form blurring from existence, so fast his after image was left in his wake.

 _'Teach him well, Naruto.'_

* * *

Menma, Sasuke, and Sakura waited for Kakashi-sensei to show up.

The lazy bastard had told them to report to the training grounds at five o'clock sharp and it was already half past seven.

It had fallen silent after Menma decided to set the trees on fire with his frustration and Sakura decided he wasn't worth her time and resolved to gaze at Sasuke's blank profile.

All three preteens flinched when someone suddenly appeared right in front of them, the flash of gold gone before they could even comprehend it.

Menma jumped so hard he stumbled and fell on his bottom, Sakura shrieked in terror, and Sasuke hesitated before he whipped out a kunai.

"Hello," A blank voice greeted them.

None of the Genin moved, instead opted to study the cloaked figure who was female if their voice was anything to go by. She had a silver sword hilt peeking out over her right shoulder, the type of blade hidden under her white garb.

"Who the heck are you?" Menma demanded.

"I will be working with Hatake-san periodically to train you." The figure intoned.

Sasuke's dark eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Sensei didn't mention having a partner." The young Uchiha said lowly, tightening his hand on his weapon.

Sakura watched with uncertainty, mint colored eyes darting between her crush and the intruder.

"I am sure your Sensei hasn't mentioned a lot of things." The woman deadpanned. "Now, line up, I will begin my assessment now."

"You think you can just come out of the blue and order us around?" Menma huffed, finding his feet and glaring stubbornly. "Lady, we don't even know you!"

"Menma!" Sakura hissed in reprimand, before eyeing the cloaked figure warily. "Don't provoke her you idiot!" She continued, considerably less confident.

"You're right, so let's rectify that." The stranger intoned. "My name is Naruto. I'm a Jounin of Konohagakure no Sato, I'm 5ft 9, I'm twenty three, and I enjoy cutting meat."

Sakura and Menma visibly paled at the last bit, but Sasuke stiffened, eyes narrowing into an impressive glare.

"Lady, you're crazy!" Menma blurted, rudely pointing at her cloaked form, before yanking his hand back and cradling it against his orange clothed chest as if worried she'd lop off his finger.

"That is debatable." The woman said flatly. "Now line up, I won't say it again."

Reluctantly, the Genin obeyed, Sasuke left, Menma right, and Sakura in the middle.

"Introduce yourselves."

"We already did that with Kakashi-sensei." Menma argued.

"Menma!" Sakura exclaimed, raising her fist to clock the boy, secretly pleased when the blonde shied away from her wrath when he'd been too annoyed to earlier. "Stop being so rude!"

"Hmph!" The boy huffed, crossing his arms. "Fine already, but only because you asked Sakura-chan."

The boy's bottom lip jutted out mulishly as he gave the hooded Jounin the stink eye.

"The name's Menma Uzumaki, creepy butcher lady. Remember it, 'cause I'm gonna be your Kage someday."

Sakura slapped her palm against her face, before blushing at such an un-ladylike response.

She nervously glanced at Sasuke, only to find the boy was still scowling at the cloaked stranger, kunai in hand.

Inwardly sighing, the pinkette scuffed her sandal against the grass, looking up at the obscured woman through her lashes, hoping a cute display would keep the woman from wanting to cut _her_ meat. She wasn't far behind Menma on the thought that the woman was creepy, she just wasn't stupid enough to tell someone that proclaimed they enjoyed cutting stuff what she thought of them.

"My name is Sakura Haruno, pleased to make your acquaintance Naruto-san." She mumbled. _'As if! You're creepier than Shino. I'd live a long and happy life without having to see you again lady, CHA!'_

"Sasuke." The Haruno's crush grunted, clenching his kunai ever tighter, tilting his head slightly to see behind the impossible shadows of the stranger's hood. Alas, all he could see was the blue of her eyes. "Uchiha Sasuke."

Menma rolled his eyes heavily.

"So what now creepy lady?"

Sakura stopped herself from slamming her face into her palm again, as such was unbecoming of a lady.

Naruto stepped forward.

Right before Menma.

"A fool. Unskilled in nearly everything. You have much to learn."

As Menma's mouth fell open and Sakura's eyes bulged, the woman stepped to the side, so that now she loomed over Sakura instead, causing the girl to shrink before her imposing form.

"A liability. Too weak, in body and mind. Say what you mean, and mean what you say."

Sakura's eyes narrowed as her mouth screwed shut, mint eyes beginning to well with tears.

Now Naruto stood before Sasuke, and the boy didn't back down. He glared into the shadows of the woman's hood unflinchingly.

"A prince." Naruto declared, throwing all three Genin for a complete loop before she shattered their perception. "Too arrogant for anyone's good. Learn your weaknesses, and make up for them elsewhere."

Sakura and Menma saw Sasuke about to attack Naruto, and they knew he would, for a mere day before he'd attacked Kakashi-sensei in a fit of rage when he said they all failed as ninja.

"If you come at me with the intent to harm, I will chop off your arms." Naruto uttered darkly. "See if you can accomplish anything then, little prince."

They all felt it then.

A tiny hint of what the woman was capable of, but it was still enough to have Sakura retching up her onigiri breakfast and falling to her quaking knees.

Menma completely froze, tensing up as if someone had him by the throat.

Sasuke gasped and stumbled back, his teammates too occupied with their own terror to notice his. The kunai in his left hand began visibly quaking from the force of his fear.

 _'Those eyes…'_ Sasuke thought, staring helplessly into the cloaked woman's only visible features.

Her glacial blue eyes.

And suddenly, those eyes weren't blue anymore.

They were a ruby red, pupils distorted into an odd shape, spinning from the power of a dark dojutsu.

 _'Itachi… her eyes are just like Itachi's… the eyes of a murderous sociopath.'_

As if seeing Sasuke was no longer there, Naruto reeled in the tiny sliver of barbaric intent, allowing the Genin to move once more.

"W-wait!" Sakura gasped through her tears, reaching blindly for Menma's garish pants leg. Uncaringly, she wiped her mouth with the back of her shaking hand, allowing the now breathing Uzumaki to grab her wrist and haul her to her feet.

Everyone ignored the white sludge she'd vomited.

"S-Sasuke-kun is my teammate." Sakura stuttered.

"Our teammate." Menma solidified, warily eyeing the blue eyed woman.

"We won't j-just st-stand a-and let you h-hurt him!" The pinkette declared.

"Y-yeah, so you better back off creepy lady. You don't know what Team Seven can do, dattebayo!"

Sasuke looked over at his teammates, dark eyes visibly surprised that they had come to his aid, even after he constantly treated them poorly.

"Oh? I see." Naruto intoned. "You will stand by the prince even if it's to face me, little weakling?"

Sakura flinched at the jab, but her jaw set stubbornly, and even trembling, she let go of Menma's arm to step slightly in front of Sasuke, shielding him from the cruel eyed stranger.

"Hm." The woman hummed, eyes slicing into the orange garbed boy. "And you? The fool, you'll protect the prince?"

"Somebody's gotta watch the teme's back if he's gonna run off challenging psychos like you." Menma huffed, chest puffing with shaky bravado.

"I see." Naruto mumbled, hand reaching out of her cloak, causing all three Genin to tense as the bandaged appendage took hold of the hilt peeking out over her cloaked shoulder. "Then I suppose I'll just have to carve up a little weakling and a little fool before I do the little prince."

Sakura's eyes welled with fresh tears, and Menma swallowed audibly.

"Hn." Sasuke tutted, sliding into a solid taijutsu stance. "If you think I'm going to stand around twiddling my thumbs while you pick us off, you're an arrogant little fool. You must be the weakling of Jounin if you need to pick on fresh Genin."

"Ha!" Menma spat, grinning spitefully before drawing his own kunai, and making a hand sign, four shadow clones popping into existence at either of his sides.

Sakura shook away her tears before her hands dipped into the pouch behind her, when she pulled them free, shuriken were tucked between every one of her fingers, her pink brows caved into a determined frown.

"You all intend to fight me?" Naruto asked, hand tightening around the hilt of her hidden blade.

"Not that I want their help," Sasuke muttered.

"But Kakashi-sensei said only trash abandon their comrades." Sakura recited softly.

"We're not trash crazy lady." Menma growled, blue eyes serious. "Believe it."

"You truly believe people who abandon their comrades are trash?" Naruto asked.

"Are you gonna keep yappin'?" Menma huffed.

"Yes," Sakura murmured, answering when Menma didn't, and nodding once. "Yes we do."

"Hn." Sasuke grunted, eyes betraying a resolve as solid as stone.

"Stay true to your word." Naruto intoned.

"H-huh?" Menma asked. _'What the heck is this lady on about?'_

"E-excuse me?" Sakura wondered, her battle stance slackening, perhaps foolishly when Naruto's hand left her sword's hilt.

"What's this about?" Sasuke demanded.

"If you believe that abandoning your comrades makes you trash, and you have every intention on never going back on your belief, you are already shinobi. Shinobi worth teaching."

Sakura's arms fell to her sides as she gaped at the hooded woman, and Menma's clones decided to just dismiss themselves if a butt kicking wasn't getting done.

Sasuke's brows furrowed, before he scowled.

"Was this a test?"

"Yes." Naruto deadpanned, causing Menma and Sakura's mouths to drop open. "It is my belief, that a shinobi must have something to believe in. To fight for. You believe in your sensei's first lesson to you, and that is enough. Never go back on your word. That is _my_ first lesson to you."

"So like…" Menma scratched the back of his head. "Does that mean we pass?"

"Yes." Naruto intoned. "Still, all three of you are precisely as I said. A fool, a weakling, and a prince. Be sure to rectify this."

Sasuke's glare could wilt flora he wasn't even looking at.

Sakura's expression fell in disappointment, and Menma's face flushed with righteous fury.

"WHY YOU-"

Naruto's form burst into a golden glow, and then she was gone.

* * *

A flare of gold beside him notified him of her presence.

"Are you satisfied?" He questioned blandly.

"Hai."

Kakashi's single visible eye studied Naruto's hooded form as they both crouched in the trees to the left of Team Seven.

"Don't you think that was a little cruel?"

"I'm not oblivious to your idea of a first lesson." The hooded blonde returned blankly.

The silver haired man sighed, knowing he wasn't going to win the argument, and quite frankly didn't want to. What's done is done. Naruto had threatened to chop up his students and they were probably all mentally scarred from the experience. On top of that, he'd get an earful for being late and allowing such a cold person to have a full test on them without his presence.

"Do you really believe that?"

"Hm?"

Kakashi's keen eye studied the woman's hooded profile, watching her watch the Genin.

"That staying true to your word is important." The Hatake clarified.

"I wouldn't have said anything if I didn't."

"Maa maa, fair enough."

"Well," Naruto murmured. "I've learned all that I need to. For now I will leave. Tell the other Jounin we need to come up with a schedule for which days I help which teams."

Kakashi couldn't say he was pleased with being ordered around, but it's not like the blonde wanted something unreasonable. Plus, she probably had no means of contacting the other Sensei.

 _'That's a load of bull bigger than my excuses. She's got one of the most keen pair of eyes to ever touch this village, if she really wanted to know where they were, she'd know.'_

Kakashi rolled his eye as Naruto took his silence as confirmation and left the premises.

"UGH!" Menma exclaimed from the clearing. "Where is that lazy perverted sensei?!"

"Maa," Kakashi hummed, hand dropping from its gradual drift to the pocket holding his Icha Icha. "The Genin are getting restless, better go play for a bit."

 _'What an interesting belief you have, Naruto-san.'_ Kakashi thought, appearing in a swirl of leaves before his cute little students. _'It makes me wonder what you've experienced to make you advise children not to go back on their word. It makes me wonder what you went back on. I suppose only time will tell.'_

* * *

Naruto watched Kakashi go over team building exercises until it was time to dismiss the Genin.

If she was honest, Naruto was taken aback by the detachment she felt. She felt no connection to the children she had met that day.

It was probably because she knew that the familiar faces were of people long dead in her own world.

She had thought she would have to struggle with herself not to break down when she faced the Genin, but she felt nothing.

Infact, dealing with them was like her first encounter with her world's Konohamaru. She was annoyed by their bratty behavior but slightly charmed by their personality.

Yes, the similarity between Menma's Team Seven and her own were glaringly obvious, but it didn't bring her monumental grief. She just felt… nostalgic. And as if she was forgetting something important. Something that she had done since arriving to the current reality she resided in, and it was the reason she didn't feel as deeply as she once did when the thought of facing familiar faces hit her.

Well, it didn't matter, as long as she didn't have to deal with emotional stress. She had no time to feel regret outside of her dreams, there was too much work to do.

 _'I guess this is good. If I don't constantly feel the need to break down because of the reminders of my past, I can take more steady steps towards bettering this world's future.'_

* * *

Sasuke resented Shisui as much as he appreciated him looking out for him.

The boy resented him for not saving his father and grandparents. For not saving many of the cousins he used to play with, the aunts and uncles and extended family that were cut down like weeds by his older brother.

The way the story went, Itachi went mad, wanting to test his abilities, he slaughtered half of the Uchiha clan, and Shisui, the prodigy before him stepped in, and stopped him. Caught, Itachi fled the village like a common criminal, but not before reaching his younger brother Sasuke, forcing him into a genjutsu to watch as his family were murdered over and over again.

No one knew that Naruto was the one to stop the killing. She'd physically stopped Itachi's blade from severing his mother's head from her shoulders, Shisui not far behind. At that moment Sasuke came in on the scene, seeing his father lying on his side, throat grinning from ear to ear.

Mikoto rushed over to her youngest child, and covered his eyes, but it was too late.

Sasuke had seen.

Itachi, crying crimson tears, placed his brother into a genjutsu and apologized to his mother one last time.

To this day, Shisui was unsure of the precise torture Sasuke had been forced to endure, but he knew Itachi had lied, and rewrote the boy's memory.

In Sasuke's memory, he walked in just as Itachi was to slay their mother. When he screamed out why, Itachi simply answered, "To test my strength". After this, Sasuke was advised to cultivate his hatred for him, and only when they had the same eyes, should Sasuke confront him once again.

Naruto and Shisui followed Itachi to the outskirts of the village.

 _"You," Itachi accused weakly, bloody tears still trickling out of his eyes. "Lord Third told me that you would save Shisui if you could."_

 _"Yes," Naruto dipped her head in confirmation. "My name is Naruto. It's unfortunate that we meet under these circumstances."_

 _Shisui said nothing._

 _"I was originally to kill the entire clan by order of Danzo. But Hokage-sama caught me before I could set out on my mission." Itachi explained softly. "I was told to use my blade sparingly."_

 _"Those who were innocent were allowed to live." Shisui guessed quietly._

 _"Hai." Itachi whispered, his bloodied katana still clutched painfully tight in his right hand._

 _"It's not too late." Naruto spoke gently, surprising Shisui, even though he had met her not long before. "You can tell Sasuke the truth, Itachi. He will still love you."_

 _The Uchiha heir shook his head._

 _"No, I will be punished for what I have done."_

 _"What choice did you have?" Shisui argued, stepping past Naruto._

 _The trio were surrounded by towering trees, a mere five minutes away from the village they all had made grave sacrifices for._

 _"Even so, I will pay for what I have done with Sasuke's hatred."_

 _"The destruction his hatred brings will not only bring your death." Naruto said, her tone oddly knowing. "He will be a pawn for greater bloodshed. He will be blinded by anger, and destroy anyone he feels is in his way."_

 _"And what will he do with the truth?" Itachi frowned, mangekyo spinning ominously as he studied the blonde stranger._

 _For some reason, Naruto had not pulled her hood back over her hair. Shisui felt it was fitting. He believed she wanted Itachi to know the face of the one who had tried to aid him._

 _"He will follow in our clan's footsteps, perhaps on a greater scale." Itachi said mournfully._

 _"If you're here to guide him, you can keep his hatred at bay." Shisui huffed, crossing his arms. "You're the only person who will be able to save him Itachi, I'm afraid Mikoto-san and I are simply not enough."_

 _"So either way his future is in darkness?" Itachi concluded. "If that is the case, I will not allow myself a small amount of happiness by staying with my foolish little brother. He will kill me someday, only then can I die with some semblance of peace."_

 _"Either option has darkness." Naruto said quietly. "If you stay and tell him the truth, you may be able to save him from hatred, but then again, he could grow to hate the village that placed such a burden upon your shoulders, as well as caused the death of half of his clan."_

 _"On the other hand," Shisui continued for her, "You leave, and he will have friends. He will learn to appreciate the family that still remains and move on, or he will hate you, and chase behind your shadow to someday reach you and end you. That path, he will cut down all in his way, and he will still learn the truth, which brings us back to him hating the village and wanting to destroy it."_

 _Shisui watched Itachi purse his lips. Each option had equal opportunities for a good future for his brother, or a dark one._

 _He could not imagine the struggle his friend fought against. He himself was in a state of quiet shock, the fact that half of his family had been killed hadn't yet hit him, but he knew it would very soon, and he was not sure what he would do with himself then._

 _"You're being selfish, Itachi." Shisui finally said._

 _His cousin looked at him, visibly surprised, his face making him want to wince as the moon caught the twin trails of blood running down his face that matched Shisui's own._

 _"Am I not allowed this piece of self service?" Itachi whispered, looking down at his feet, clutching his dripping blade even tighter._

 _Shisui's heart twitched._

 _That was right._

 _Itachi had given up everything for the safety of the village and Sasuke. He would rather his brother live full of hatred than dead and deprived of his right to grow into adulthood. However foolish that may be to someone outside looking in._

 _"Selfish at the expense of your own brother?" Naruto asked emotionlessly._

 _Itachi looked up again, bloody eyes slicing into the blue eyed stranger._

 _She rose a single hand to silence the heir before he could say anything._

 _"Don't you dare say I don't know what it is to lose everything." She uttered darkly. "Don't you dare, little boy. This is the path you've chosen, and who am I to keep you from it? I admit that I have no right. So, I'll say I'm simply here to stop mass death. That's it. I'm sure Shisui will do his best to ensure your brother grows into a good shinobi and young man."_

 _Itachi's mouth snapped shut, he blinked, turning to his equally surprised best friend, asking a silent question._

 _Shisui nodded once, lips pursed grimly._

 _"You were willing to protect the clan and village as I asked, Itachi." Shisui murmured. "I'm sorry that I left such a heavy weight on your shoulders. I… I don't know, maybe we both could've prevented this, but everything isn't lost. If this is the path you're sure you need to take… I won't stop you."_

 _'You didn't stop me when I chose my path to die, and now it's my turn to return the favor.'_

 _Shisui studied Naruto from the corner of his eye. He knew beyond that expressionless face that she was displeased with Itachi's decision, but she would allow him this vice._

 _Even if she didn't like it, Itachi had lost nearly everything, and if he could have one thing, it was to choose his own death._

 _Itachi chose to die by Sasuke's hand, and Naruto would not interfere._

 _"I will look out for Sasuke in your stead." Shisui promised, nearly wincing at the absolute relief his words brought his friend, glancing at the blonde beside him._

 _Her blue eyes closed as if in mourning._

 _"I will insure neither of them die before you do, Itachi-san."_

 _With a sigh, Shisui looked away from the blonde stranger, and to his best friend, who seemed even more relieved that Naruto gave her word to protect his brother and good friend._

 _"Go." Shisui ordered. "Go, before I change my mind."_

 _Itachi's eyes deactivated, and the trails of blood turned to clear rivers of salt, glistening in the moonlight. Raven colored orbs traveled almost unsurely between Shisui and Naruto._

 _"Go." Naruto murmured._

 _"Thank you." Itachi choked, lips trembling as he struggled with his composure._

 _Shisui's fists clenched at his sides when Itachi's form dissolved into a mass of crows, and fled skyward, away from Konoha._

* * *

It was an hour after the end of Sasuke's designated first official day of training. The sun was already beginning to creep down, giving way to the time of the moon.

"So, how do you like your second sensei?" Shisui asked his younger cousin, setting a plate onto the dining room table.

He had suggested numerous times that Sasuke and Mikoto move somewhere else, away from the dark shadow of their home, but Sasuke insisted that he'd rather stay at home.

Mikoto-san didn't do much of anything in recent days. She spent her time quietly drinking tea and staring off into space. Sometimes she was present enough to ask her remaining son how his day was, but for the most part, the woman was lost in her regrets.

Shisui brought meals over for them both when he could, but he was busy keeping the remainder of the clan in order as a stand in clan head. He would admit to burying himself in missions and paperwork at the police force headquarters, but at least he looked out for Sasuke.

Mikoto-san almost couldn't look at Sasuke without crying. She kept seeing a little boy that she had failed to protect from the sight of her murdered husband, she kept remembering how she couldn't save her eldest from such a dark path.

Sasuke sat at the table and began his daily ritual of picking at his dinner.

"She was annoying." He said flatly, not even questioning how his cousin knew he had another sensei. "All she did was make fun of all of us."

Shisui held back a snort.

"You mean she pointed out your flaws and you took it as a personal insult, even though I'd bet my tantō she criticized you and your teammates equally."

Sasuke pursed his lips before lifting up his chopsticks and shoving a bit of rice into his mouth to avoid answering.

Shisui shook his head, smiling slightly.

"Honestly Sasuke." The Uchiha chided. "Don't be so quick to judge others, sometimes you may be surprised by the depth of someone's person."

Shisui didn't know her very well, but he wanted to.

Naruto was like Itachi in so many ways.

They both had such kind souls, souls affected by the darkness in the world, gentle souls forced to grow abrasive shells in order to bear the burden of the truth.

The truth that the shinobi world was not all heroism and unfaltering will.

It was bloodshed and war and so much death.

It was suffering and rage and merciless.

Shisui believed that no one should be a shinobi, as it was such a tainted profession, but it was the world they lived in. And it was always the truly good people that made the best ninja.

Itachi was a good ninja, and so he'd slaughtered his father, and his father's father. His grandparents… anyone he knew for sure would partake in the coup.

Naruto was a good ninja, and so she slaughtered countless people that betrayed the Hokage's trust. Slaughtered the people that others believed to be trusted comrades, cut them down like a common butcher, poisoning her person to other people's perception.

"There's no depth to someone like that." Sasuke muttered darkly, glaring at his dinner plate. "She had eyes just like _his_. Cold and dead. The way she moves… all she knows how to do is kill. Why was she ever allowed to teach?"

"Sasuke," Shisui said sharply. "Don't talk about things you have no knowledge of. Recently I was told that you will learn what you are supposed to be taught, or you will suffer for your ignorance later."

"And what does that mean oh great savior of Uchiha?" The boy spat, expression twisting spitefully.

Shisui stopped himself from rolling his eyes. Even so, the boy's words stung more than he may ever know, because Shisui hadn't saved anyone. Not half of his clan, and certainly not his best friend.

"Don't try and make this about that." Shisui said, crossing his arms over his chest. "You need to understand that your whole life can't center around the past."

 _'Itachi, if you could see what our actions have done, I don't think you'd have been so quick about making yourself the villain, even if to protect the village.'_

"What does either of those things mean?" Sasuke huffed, his glare reaching Shisui now instead of his food.

"Yes, what does that mean." Shisui murmured cryptically. _'If you can't even see why being stuck in the past is unwise, there are many things you still have to learn, little cousin. And I'm not sure they're things that I can teach you.'_

The older of the two ravens turned and left the room, tossing over his shoulder quietly, "I suppose you will have to see for yourself."

* * *

"You happy now?"

With a small smile, Hiruzen Sarutobi turned away from the sunset view of his precious village, his hands regally tucked behind his back.

"Ah, Naruto my dear girl, what brings you here?"

"You know what old man." The blonde woman said, not bothering with her usual stoic mask. She frowned, crossing her arms. "I met the alternate versions of my team, and I'm alright. You've proved your point."

"And what point would that be?" The Third asked innocently, cocking his head to the side.

"The point that we're constantly arguing about." Naruto huffed. "You going on and on about how I need to make connections here and stop burying myself in work. That I need to stop hiding from the people of this reality because they're not the people that I knew."

"Oh I see. That point." Hiruzen murmured. "So, how do you feel about working with your fellow Jonin Naruto?"

"Yes, that point, old man." Naruto said, pursing her lips. "I don't feel anything. I already realize that the people here are not the comrades that I remember. I'm not emotionally attached to them. So I would appreciate it if you took me off of this mission."

"Now that, I cannot do." Hiruzen said, his smile faltering.

"And why not?" The blonde asked dangerously.

Hiruzen returned Naruto's unamused expression.

"Because it seems you don't realize the point I've been trying to show you, at least not completely."

"What?" Naruto bristled. "What are you talking about Jiji, are you calling me a liar?"

"Not a liar, but disobedient nonetheless." The Third scowled. "I thought I advised you not to use that seal, Naruto."

"What are you on about?" The blonde demanded, uncrossing her arms, alarmed by the Hokage's grim attitude.

"You ignored my warning Naruto." Hiruzen said gravely, taking a short warning step away from his village view window.

"What are you talking about Jiji?" Naruto huffed.

"The fact that you don't know simply tells me that you went behind my back to use that seal anyway." Hiruzen uttered lowly, head dipping, Hokage's hat casting grim shadows across his expression. "I think I know why you feel no emotional attachment to the counterparts of your world."

"And what is the reason?" Naruto asked, lifting her chin defiantly.

"Let me show you."

Naruto's eyes widened when Hiruzen darted at her at unreal speeds.

Without thinking, she drew her sword.

* * *

 **Okay, I just need to say, check out my friend Ninjazzz, her story Melia's Secret is a total trip. It is OC centric, but it has all the characters we know and love, including some of the Akatsuki.**

 **Read it, review it, and love it ya chumps.**

 **Nah I'm kidding I love you guys.**


	5. A Witch's Tears

**I don't own Naruto or the cover image.**

* * *

 _"The Edge… There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over."_

 _-Hunter S Thompson_

* * *

God damn him if she hadn't made quite the first impression.

He laughed quietly to himself. Only she would understand the meaning of that grim raspy sound.

Presently, Obito Uchiha stood all alone, an icy breeze tickled through his hair and the ends of his long coat.

The moon was full above, setting his dark form alight.

 _"How can someone with eyes as dead as yours possibly understand how I feel?" He spit. "You've probably forgotten what pain feels like because you're not even human."_

How dare she? He'd thought.

How _dare_ she subject him to that future? She utterly blindsided him, ripped out his only remaining eye after he'd given the first to that traitor, and then she dragged him off to Kami knows where and tied him up. She told him who she was, and where she came from, who she once knew and what once was in her world. And when he spit at her blindly, she forced her chakra into him, the two of them caught in a sort of odd resonance. He was brought into her mind, and she made him watch.

She made him watch that bleak future from her point of view.

He felt her hopes, dreams, pain, and disappointment all in her shoes. He watched another version of himself have a hand in bringing about the end of the world.

His vision had been shattered. There was no infinite Tsukuyomi. There was no world of everlasting good dreams. Her reality, was an endless cycle of pain, and war. Friend after friend was slaughtered. Hope after hope, crushed.

And she was the only one standing at the end of it all.

There were pieces missing before her last memory of that world. The one where she stood atop a mountain, looking down across an endless battlefield turned to bloody swamp, the war torn terrain covered in corpse after corpse. Somehow, after it hit her that it was absolutely over, that hope meant absolutely nothing, she had fled to another dimension, freeing Kurama from her seal, allowing his consciousness to take over the Kyuubi of the new dimension, and leaving his chakra network to her.

Obito knew that the memories he saw were true, but he also knew that she had not shared them all. Of course it made sense, he didn't need to see every time she had a D rank mission, or every time she went to the bathroom, but it wasn't just that.

Obito had not seen how Naruto got rid of her world's Kaguya. He hadn't seen how the blonde woman had escaped the mad Goddess's clutches unlike everyone she fought with. He didn't see how she ended up in that place of in between where Kurama was ripped from her by an unknown force. He just knew that she somehow made it to his dimension.

He knew somehow she'd freed her world of Kaguya, but not before the Rabbit Goddess robbed her of everyone important, and everyone she hoped to protect.

And he also knew, that if he'd fallen, she'd plummeted. He knew she was trapped in a darkness that she could only guide others away from, from afar.

 _"If I'm inhuman, what are you?" Her voice came from directly in front of him, his beaten form confined, chained to a cold metal chair in an echoing room with damp air. "You're looking to be a catalyst to endless war and the extinction of the shinobi world."_

 _"Fuck you!" Obito sputtered, nearly incoherent with rage, scowling so hard his muscles pulled, and the empty socket that had held his remaining eye began to weep metallic fluid._

 _"Fuck you Naruto! That wasn't me. That was your world. Just because that happened there, doesn't mean it will happen here!"_

 _"Why don't you just address the fact that you're still in love with her?" Naruto intoned, voice so unlike the powerful, stubborn, feminine rasp he'd constantly heard in her memories. She was like him. A mere shell of her former self. A shell of a human filled to the brim with regrets and shattered dreams._

 _"You still love that child." Naruto went on. "That's why you can't let it go, why you have your eyes open, but you've turned your back on the light."_

 _"How can I not still love her?" Obito growled, not even denying it. "I never stopped caring about her, she just stopped living. That doesn't disconnect me from her. That doesn't make me stop feeling as deeply for her. And that's why it rips me apart. Because I love someone who can do nothing in return, because she's dead."_

 _"You're a terrible shinobi!" Naruto spat, losing her composure completely. And oh, how he wished he could see it. See that stoic face he'd only glimpsed before she tore out his eye twist in helpless rage that he invoked. "What do shinobi do? Shinobi endure, and you couldn't endure the death of one person."_

 _Obito's lips pulled into a snarl._

 _How dare she. Time and time again she had the audacity to question him. To question his motives as if she didn't already know. How dare she make him relive his pain? How dare she make him speak the unspeakable aloud?_

 _He felt enraged._

 _Almost never. He almost never felt so impossibly angry. The only time his rage had reached passed its current peak, was when Rin hit the ground with her heart scorched to shreds, Kakashi lying in a faint beside her. He'd felt so angry he'd taken down all the Mist nin present._

 _This anger was second to the day he had changed forever._

 _"One person, Obito." Naruto muttered._

 _"Oh, because your world was doomed and you were too weak to save your friends your pain is automatically greater than mine?" The Uchiha snarled. "I have no right to feel the way that I do?"_

 _"I never said that!" She huffed, neither one of them oblivious to the fact that she'd ignored his first remark. "I'm saying that the way you choose to deal with your pain is wrong. It hurts like hell to lose someone that you love, I know it, and you know it, and so does almost everyone on the planet. I'm saying you're wrong Obito."_

 _She went on before he had the chance to snarl out a response._

 _"You should talk to Kakashi. You should reconnect with him, and fight and let him know how devastated you are. You shouldn't be looking to be friends with a fake dream version of him! To resent Kakashi for a decision that Rin made… you're wrong!"_

 _"I'm not wrong!" He yelled. "He let her die. He promised he would protect her. Aren't you the one who said you never go back on your word? So why is it so hard for you to believe that I can't stand Kakashi went back on his?"_

 _"It's not hard to believe. I understand it, but don't try and twist my words." Naruto returned hotly. "I understand how you feel, but that doesn't mean I agree with what you do with your pain. You can't just give up on the world. As long as you're still alive, you should be able to see that there are wonderful things still worth protecting."_

 _"Protect what?" He scoffed. "Everything that matters is gone. It was Rin's death that made me truly see the world is filthy. That there is almost no value in our reality because something that did have value, something that was clean and beautiful and kind was ripped away from life."_

 _Obito felt a shift in the atmosphere. If he was anyone else, the pure threatening intent Naruto began to radiate probably would have made him crumble and submit to her will._

 _"If it really pains you that much, I'd be happy to send you to reunite with her."_

 _The Uchiha was taken aback by her dark tone._

 _Honestly though, why was he? He knew Naruto, because she had forced him to live as her through her past experiences. He knew that she was unpredictable, no matter what face she wore. Be it a cheerful diamond in the rough or a cold brooding witch._

 _"Are you threatening me Uzumaki?" Obito drawled, tone simmering with anger._

 _"No, I'm promising that if you step out of line, I'll fucking kill you Uchiha."_

 _"Give me back my eye." Obito snarled, the rage that only she seemed to be able to invoke flaring within him. "Give it back and we'll see if you can say that so easily."_

 _The Uchiha heard the intruder shift closer, and he knew he had only because she'd allowed him to._

 _He felt a deceptively soft hand brush over the left, unmarred side of his face._

 _Before he knew what was happening, his eye socket was being peeled open and a slick orb forced in._

 _The man hissed at the pain, face twisting even more in a snarl. He felt a flare of soothing chakra, and without thinking, his eye bulged open._

 _"What the-"_

 _His eye._

 _He had an eye._

 _Obito winced under the spotlight above. It was bright, the only light in an echoing room lined with dripping pipes._

 _Naruto was closer than he expected. After forcibly giving him back his eye, she had stepped back, body shifted slightly away from him, yet looking with bright blue eyes, right hand positioned on the hilt over her shoulder._

 _He couldn't help thinking the sword didn't suit her. And the Uchiha hadn't seen where she'd gotten that sword in her memories either._

 _"What's your goal?" The Uchiha asked, alarmingly calm after being allowed to meet eyes with his captor. And yes, he wasn't so prideful that he wouldn't admit that she'd allowed him back his eye. He knew he was utterly helpless against her without it, and he also knew that she could smear him across the floor with both of his eyes._

 _It was part of the reason he was so angry with her._

 _He knew that like him, her intentions were "good", but they opposed his own end goal. Her goals opposed his, and she was more powerful than him._

 _He knew that everything he worked for meant absolutely nothing because she was too strong to manipulate. Too strong to beat. Too strong to oppose._

 _She knew it to._

 _She knew that he couldn't stop her. And she knew that he knew it._

 _Naruto was giving him a choice._

 _Fight for the cause she had fled her own world for, or fall to her blade like the rest of Akatsuki._

 _"You know what my goal is." The blonde intoned. "I showed you my memories. What could become of this world."_

 _"And because you couldn't save your own you're determined to mettle in this one?" Obito returned, equally monotone. "What makes you any different from Madara and Nagato? Or me? You're simply forcing your ideals on the world like the rest of us that can because of your own grievance, and you're standing there and telling me the way that I deal with my pain is wrong?"_

 _Naruto snorted, shattering the image of a cold young woman._

 _Her lips were upturned ever so slightly at the corners, and she dropped her hand from her sword, instead crossing her arms._

 _"I never said I was any different." She murmured, eyes closed as if she didn't have a care in the world. "I've killed for my own goals. Just like Madara, just like Nagato, and just like you."_

 _Obito pursed his lips as he watched her._

 _"I won't justify what I've done by saying those people were bad, by pointing out how bloodthirsty and selfish they were. In a way I'm exactly the same. I've become the very thing that I can't stand. A murderer. A villain looking to force her own goals onto others."_

 _"So what's the point?" Obito spat, losing his composure. "What's the point if you know that you're the same as everyone else you've killed? What? You're just going to ignore what you've done because you feel your cause is better?"_

 _"No." Naruto shrugged, opening her eyes to pierce them into her captive. "Maybe I'll be punished for my actions, and maybe I won't. But I do what I do, so that this world will go on."_

 _"And what about yours?" Obito huffed. "Sure, many shinobi were wiped out, but I know it wasn't all of them. I know every last life in your world isn't gone."_

 _"No," The blonde admitted. "Not everything is lost. But that's not the issue here. The issue is that your plan, would give no one a choice. Humans have the right to chose their own path. Your dream, if achieved would shatter everyone else's at the same time as granting them. They'd live happily in the Tsukuyomi, but it'd be fake. That isn't living."_

 _"And living through grief and war? That's better than what I want?" Obito spat._

 _"I don't know." Naruto said. "But I do know, it gives them the choice. A choice to go on and fight, to find happiness again. The choice to choose their own path and exercise their freedom. What you want takes that away. I know that isn't right. It isn't right to take away someone's freedom."_

 _"You're taking away my freedom to do as I please." Obito pointed out, lip lifting in a snarl._

 _"If what you please sacrifices everyone else, then you don't need it. Find a new dream. You have no right to end the world, that right lies in hands that aren't mortal."_

 _"So what gives you the right to save the world?"_

 _"Anyone can do that if they're stubborn enough." Naruto murmured._

 _"Looks like you weren't." Obito sneered. "Seeing as you had to run to an entirely different universe because you couldn't save your own."_

 _"Yeah, you're right. I was too weak, and people suffered for it." Naruto shrugged, even though they both knew such a gesture was unsuited for the situation. "But you shouldn't talk about things you have no knowledge of. My intention was not to come to this world. It was to rewind my own."_

 _Obito's eye widened._

 _"Instead of going back in time, I ended up here." Naruto revealed. "And I thought, well, I can't fix it. I can't fix what I allowed to happen. But it didn't happen here yet. I can still fix this. I can help this world, so that no one has to see what I did. So that no one, fights for something that ends in nothing."_

Obito had been struck speechless.

Timetravel?

It was a stretch to think she came from another world. But she'd been trying to go back in her own reality?

Still the man wondered… How much of a spit to the face was that? Naruto had been aiming to save her friends and comrades through time travel, but she ended up in an alternate universe with people that were who she'd known, but they didn't know her.

She'd ended up here, and instead of giving up when she realized she failed again… she thought…

 _There's no way I can let what happen there, happen here._

She thought she would fight one more time, to save the world.

Even if it wasn't her world.

She came in with nothing but shattered dreams, and decided that because she had the power to, she would try to keep as many people as possible from experiencing what she had.

She knew she was a hypocrite for the things she'd done, but now Obito could see.

She simply didn't know what else to do.

Naruto had so much power, and she'd failed in her own world. She'd ended up in a new one, so she thought, why not use that power for this world?

Obito wasn't sure if what she was doing was right or wrong. He knew what he'd been trying to do was wrong. That's why he'd been so angry. Because she'd forced him to see the errors of his ways. She'd _made_ him face his wrongdoings, and it pissed him off to no end because he didn't want to face it.

He didn't want to see what he'd become.

"Rin would've been so disappointed." He murmured.

The only witness to his thoughts was the moon.

 _"I see." Obito muttered. "I know."_

 _"Hm?" Naruto hummed._

 _"I know. It's always wrong to kill. That isn't something that will ever be right, no matter the circumstances. Humans have no right to take human life. But what you want isn't wrong." He admitted. "You want the world to go on, don't you? And even if it makes you the villain, you take out people who threaten the world. You do it because you know, some people can't be saved. Some people won't listen if you tell them that their actions, their goals, are wrong."_

 _"Yes," Naruto sighed, turning fully to face him. "I'm not proud of what I've done."_

 _But I don't know what else to do, was left unsaid._

 _"I understand." Obito whispered._

 _And he did._

 _Oh, what a sorry pair they were._

 _What had they allowed themselves to become? Did they ever stand a chance?_

 _Naruto chuckled softly, causing Obito to look at her in blank question._

 _The blonde shook her head._

 _"Yeah," She nodded. "What a sorry pair indeed."_

 _"I said that out loud?" Obito wondered, shaking his head and giving his own soft chuckle._

 _His single eye took on a helpless gleam, and he felt something bubbling inside of him._

 _Naruto didn't do anything but give that small almost smile so unlike the one in her memories as Obito released a bark of laughter._

 _Her lips twitched slightly when the man began cackling, when he threw his head back and was laughing so hard his gut convulsed in pain, and his only eye streamed with tears that diluted the blood on his cheek._

 _"I understand!" He guffawed._

 _Naruto giggled slightly, hiding it behind her bandaged hand._

 _And Obito knew._

 _She understood to._

 _"What am I going to do?" Obito sobbed._

 _He didn't care how pathetic it was. He didn't even have enough in him to question when his hysterical laughter became tears._

 _"You can do whatever you want." Naruto promised, unshaken by his loss of composure._

 _Obito was positive she'd been exactly where he was at some point. Multiple times. What a sorry pair indeed..._

 _"You can do whatever you want as long as it isn't threatening to others."_

 _The Uchiha didn't know when she had gotten so close. But she was kneeling before him, her hand sliding over the skin of his marred cheek. She lifted his helplessly bowed head so that they could meet eyes. He wasn't surprised to find her gaze brighter, holding a wet gleam._

 _"You say that," Obito snorted, his last tear sliding out of his eye only to be gently thumbed away by the blonde. "You say that as if this will be the last time."_

 _Maybe it was for him, but he wasn't the only man who ever, or would ever, dare to take such a path_

 _"Oh, I know it won't be." She said. "There will be others. As long as there are people, there will be war, and destruction, and death."_

 _"And you'll still be around through all of that to swoop in and stop it?" Obito said, smiling cruelly._

 _There was something in her eyes for a split second that he couldn't read. He knew that he wasn't meant to see it at all. He wanted to question it, that faint, knowing, agonized flash. But he didn't understand it, so he left it be._

 _"I won't need to be." She finally said. "There will always be people who will fight for freedom. For the right to choose."_

 _"And you're just here for now," Obito questioned. "To save the world just this once."_

 _"When I'm not needed, I'll disappear." Naruto said cryptically, giving him an odd almost smile. "I will know when I'm not needed. And I'll move on."_

 _"What does that mean?" The Uchiha questioned, watching her stand, feeling her pull her hand away from his skin._

 _"Maa, who knows?" Naruto whispered._

 _'You do.' Obito thought. 'You know exactly what that means.'_

 _And she did._

 _She just would never tell him._

 _He wasn't so sure he wanted to know either._

She'd kept him in that room for a while after that, allowing him to sort through his emotions, to gather what remained of his sanity to once again reform himself into a new person.

What came out was not unlike the Obito she'd known for that brief time in her own world. A morbid man who could smile, but was a person made entirely up of crushed hopes. A person giving humanity one more try, and stepping off on a limb.

A man putting faith into Naruto.

She'd returned, not as the Kage Bunshin he knew she always sent in, but as her real flesh and blood self.

She'd said,

"I'll untie you. From this point on, you'll be free. You do what you feel you must, and I will do the same."

Obito had surprised her when he stood up, freed from his restraints, and hugged her.

He didn't know how long he held on, and he didn't really care.

He didn't say anything dramatic, didn't proclaim his everlasting loyalty. He let her go eventually, and she'd stared at him for the longest time.

Before he knew what was happening, she was healing the deep scars on his face, and restored the eye he'd given to Kakashi so long ago.

Naruto had walked away from him then, and he'd followed her back to Konoha. Not soon after, he met the Third Hokage as a new man.

It was never verbally said, but Obito was Naruto's spy.

As The Crimson Eyed Witch, many people thought Naruto was an unmatched spy with an unmatched spy network. But in reality, she was simply a woman who knew a possible future. Her only spies were Obito, Nagato, and Konan.

She used the Third to appear as a moderately normal shinobi. She obeyed Hiruzen, but only on the surface. If she felt that situations called for her to abandon her post as a Konoha shinobi, Obito knew she would before anyone could blink.

Naruto only did what she did, to prevent the world she resided in now, from falling to the same fate as her own.

And honestly, it was a cause Obito could respect.

Maybe that made them both despicable hypocrites, but neither one of them knew anything else to do about it.

The Uchiha snorted under his breath, standing atop a large sand dune illuminated by the desert moon.

In the distance, he glimpsed the gates of Suna.

"Well, it's time to see if Rasa is maggot food yet." With that, the lanky man swirled from existence.

Soon, he'd be gathering more information for Naruto.

* * *

 _Clang!_

The edge Naruto's blade clashed with the bottom of Hiruzen's sandal. A sandal with a sheet of flexible chakra metal hidden within the sole.

The Sandaime leaned in close, foot still placed against Naruto's blade and knee held between them.

Quick as a whip Hiruzen rose his hand, fingers slipping between the blonde's lips.

Blue eyes went wide as Hiruzen drew back his hand a moment later, Naruto's tongue pinched between his fingers.

The Kage's eyes darkened at the familiar black cursed seal on the back of Naruto's tongue.

It was Danzo's design, the same block like symbols on the back of his old friend's ROOT nin's tongues.

Hiruzen was no expert, but he knew the seal had been modified. Not only would it keep Naruto from talking about whatever it is she had no desire to reveal, each time she said something that may trigger certain memories, her attention would be directed to something else, or perhaps she would deem her current thoughts as something not to worry about. Hiruzen wasn't absolutely sure of the intricacies, but he damn sure would be. All he needed to do was send Jiraiya a message.

"What have you done?" The Kage hissed.

Naruto snatched her face away before gliding back, pulling her blade away from the Third's foot before taking two great leaps that put her back near the exit.

"What are you doing old man?" The blonde growled, the nickname holding none of its usual fond undertones.

"Why is there a modified version of Danzo's seal on the back of your tongue?" The Third snarled.

Naruto didn't dare look away.

So what if she'd had a shadow clone put the seal on her? It was only a precaution, so that she'd never reveal things that didn't need to be revealed. There's no way the Third had been talking about her tongue seal. She'd never even mentioned it to him.

Hold on.

She'd never mentioned it?

Did that mean she mentioned another seal to him? If so, which one, and why couldn't she recall?

"What made you check my tongue old man?" Naruto demanded, feeling a sense of foreboding arising.

Hiruzen narrowed his dark eyes.

"It was just a hunch." He admitted. "I thought if you went through all the trouble to hide what you did by forgetting, you'd take even more precautions to make sure you couldn't rat yourself out should I ever find the truth."

"And what did I forget?" Naruto asked, knowing that she really didn't want to know, that if she'd made herself forget, it was probably better left that way.

"You came to me after meeting this world's Kakashi for the first time, just after the Uchiha Attack." The Third began, lines in his face more prominent as his expression fell into a grim cast. "Your composure was lost, and you came to me for advice. You asked me, if it would be wise to use a seal that suppresses your emotions. I told you no. I told you that you would lose your sense of self. That grief was better than nothingness. But you ignored me, Naruto. You used that seal, sealed away something important, and then you branded a curse seal on your tongue so that you would never reveal that you had. Nor anything else relating to your past if you hadn't directly brought someone into your memories."

"And on top of those two seals…" Naruto murmured. "I sealed away the memory. The memory of sealing away my emotions."

"Precisely." The Third said gravely.

"You took the measures to make sure I wouldn't find out, but you didn't take into account that time would out your actions."

 _'That's right. It was only a matter of time before Jiji ordered me to do something that would reveal I was lacking something. That something about me wasn't right, and even if I made myself forget, I still gave myself away because I wasn't myself.'_

"But obviously I didn't seal everything away." Naruto pointed out. "I still feel things, just not as deeply. With whatever I sealed away under lock, it was as if I met the counterparts of my team for the first time. I didn't overreact. I didn't see them as ghosts. What's so wrong about what I did? We both know that if I hadn't… I'd probably have broken."

"I don't believe so Naruto." Hiruzen said. "You are strong, you could've handled it. This way, you are only denying yourself a part of your own humanity."

"Humanity." Naruto echoed, chuckling humorlessly. "If only you knew how severely lacking of that I actually am."

"I know you have hidden memories from me." The Third waved a dismissive hand. "I know you've done the same to Obito, Nagato, and Konan as well. That is not my concern. My concern is that you are Naruto, and you do not behave as such."

Naruto jerked back, as if struck, blue eyes wide at the unexpected statement.

"What are you talking about? I was Naruto in my world, and I'm Naruto here."

"No." Hiruzen shook his head, closing his eyes mournfully. "I know Naruto. I lived as Naruto for a short time, and you are not her. You are half baked, a dull reflection."

The blonde bristled, jaw clenching in outrage.

"Who are you to say that?" Naruto snarled.

 _'You lived as me. So you know. You know how much it hurts to wake up here everyday and have nothing to go back to and yet you still…'_

"You're not my Hokage." The blonde said, suddenly emotionless. "Nor are you my Jiji. That Hiruzen Sarutobi died when I was twelve. You don't get to choose what path I take. If I'm not harming anyone, you have no right to call me out for what I've done."

Hiruzen's wise brown eyes opened and studied the young woman.

"No, I may not be, but I can at least say that you are important to me. I may not be as close to you as the man in your memories, but you are still my dear friend. I have lived as you, cried as you, bled as you, and hoped as you. And I have lived in the same village as you. I have gotten to know you, even with those seals, and the person that is locked inside of them… that is a person that deserves to be free. Even with all your pain, I believe it isn't right for you to hide, Naruto."

A shrill sense of distress stabbed through the blonde.

Without thinking, she turned her back, opening the door as she sheathed her blade, and fled as fast as she could without using body flicker.

When she made it outside, she took to the rooftops.

 _'I won't change. I won't. Because if I do… I'll break_.'


	6. A Witch's Burden

**I don't own Naruto**.

* * *

 _"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark, the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."_

 _-Plato_

* * *

They were tired.

So. damn. _tired_.

Days of war went by with no end as they fought. So many shinobi fell to death brought about by a woman dubbed a "goddess".

Naruto and Sasuke inherited the powers of the Sage of Six Paths, but it wasn't enough. They were too exhausted, so, they used everything they had to free who they could from the infinite Tsukuyomi after Kaguya temporarily returned them to earth from one of her dimensions.

She often did that. Dragging them through the dimensions she could call at will before returning them to their own bleak reality.

Like a game. Forcing them to see everyone twisted up in inescapable vines, forced into slumber, unknowing of what went on in the real world.

Gaara, the Rookie Nine, Lee, Tenten, Temari, and Kankuro had been freed from the genjutsu first, as time went on eventually most of the Shinobi Alliance were freed. But what followed wasn't true war.

It was a slaughter.

Kaguya picked them off. She made it seem easy, devastating their forces without batting an eye, killing legions with a wave of a hand and a spray of bones.

First it was the Sensei they fought beside.

Naruto would never forget the sound of Lee's scream when he watched Gai-sensei leap in front of him, still crippled from his fight with Madara so long ago, shoving his protegé away and taking on the flow of lava that was meant for him.

 _"GAI-SENSEI!"_

 _Tenten sprang forward, holding him back with all her might as the glowing liquid descended, instantly hardening as it touched Gai's flesh._

 _The man lifted a single hand, holding up his thumb one last time before he was burned to death, scorched, blackened corpse frozen in the middle of the battlefield._

 _"NO!" Lee screamed._

 _He flailed, but Tenten held fast. She squeezed her eyes shut to stop her own tears._

 _Naruto looked away, swallowing the gag that wanted to come forth at the smell of burned flesh, catching Kakashi-sensei's expression as he watched the last moments of one of the best friends he'd ever had._

 _Naruto had never known until then that he could shed tears._

 _After that Lee was so much quieter._

 _He was more fierce, and almost every time Naruto saw him he was scowling._

 _But that was only the beginning._

* * *

Why?

Why did he have to notice?

 _'Dammit old man!'_

She'd sealed it away, she'd done it for a reason, and now that she was aware of those seals, she was starting to remember, whether she wanted to or not.

No, her emotions weren't unsealed, but she felt conflicted knowing that she had sealed away a part of her own humanity. She was frightened. How deep had her grief been? She couldn't even remember that well.

But she could remember how they all died.

The memories swamped her, all of them clashing together out of order as she flashed back again and again.

 _"Naruto you should tie your hair back."_ Ino had said. _"You have to keep your vision clear. You never know what could sneak up on you..."_

Naruto shook her head, trying to forget…

 _Ino stared Naruto in the eyes. Her hands whispered through Naruto's hair before they fell to her sides. She'd just finished pulling Naruto's hair into a low ponytail._

 _Horrified, Naruto watched red trickle from Ino's slightly agape mouth, her pale blue eyes filming over slowly, unseeing._

 _"Oh." The Yamanaka murmured, and then, her torso slid from her legs, and fell to the ground._

 _Naruto trembled, watching Ino's bisected legs sway, and then go limp._

 _She looked up, her newly tied hair keeping her vision clear as she met eyes with Kaguya, who flicked blood from her claws, as if she hadn't just cut someone in half._

 _'Where…? Where did she come from!?'_

 _They were hidden. They had been hidden. HOW DID SHE ALWAYS FIND THEM!?_

 _Naruto's breath hitched, but before she could react, Choji roared in overwhelming grief and rage, charging in._

 _"CHOJI NO!" Shikamaru yelled, voice hoarse as he was shaken from his horror._

 _Kaguya lifted a hand, something shot from her fingers and struck Choji in the center of his forehead._

 _The Akimichi froze, and his head dispersed into ash._

 _Naruto didn't get to watch his body drop before Shikamaru was upon her, yanking her into a run. Sakura came too, pulling her firmly by her stump._

 _"Not yet…" Sakura had said. "Don't give up yet, Naruto."_

 _It… it wasn't fair._

 _Naruto's ponytail trailed behind her._

* * *

Naruto fingered the end of the low ponytail she always kept it in, wishing she had a cigarette. She was on top of the Hokage Monument, sitting atop the Sandaime's head.

 _"That's… that's a horrible way to go."_ Kiba had muttered.

It was Shikamaru who'd told the rest of Rookie Nine plus Gaara, Temari, Lee, and Tenten how he'd lost both of his teammates in a few seconds.

They all had a rare moment to rest from battle, and they were hiding out in a mountain cave, trying to come up with an end game plan.

Sasuke was outside, keeping watch for the Rabbit Goddess.

He never took an active role in their little meetings. He tried his best to keep his distance, and the only one he fought beside was Naruto.

 _Kiba reached out, and Hinata tried to grab his hand as he was sucked into a vortex that only had blackness within._

 _"He will suffocate." Kaguya explained emotionlessly._

 _"No please!" Hinata begged._

 _Shino's clothes buzzed angrily, a black swarm of insects pouring from his sleeves, but they reached the floating goddess and fell dead to an unknown force._

 _Sakura held Hinata back as Kiba disappeared._

 _"KIBA-KUN...!"_

 _The vortex swallowed his wide eyed form whole, and Naruto knew he would suffer immensely, denied of breath until his life was snuffed out._

 _After Kiba was taken, they'd run again. Tenten released a barrage of weapons as Kaguya made to give chase, and was torn to shreds by white bijuu avatars spawning from the goddess' sleeves for her efforts._

 _Naruto shook her head, once again finding Sakura and Shikamaru pulling her along._

 _'Yes.' She thought mournfully. 'That's… that's a really horrible way to go.'_

Akamaru had been aimless after that, and one day, he just laid down and went to sleep. He slept and never woke up again.

 _"You must be calm."_ Shino told her. _"Never let how you feel be a reason for you to make mistakes. It could not only mean your life, but the life of your dear comrades."_

Naruto had never known him to be shaken. But he'd had enough. They all had… but it would seem Shino nor Lee could take any more.

 _Having had enough, Shino and Lee plotted to attack the Rabbit Goddess on their own._

 _They knew they would die, but they felt that causing enough of a diversion would allow their comrades enough time to defeat Kaguya._

 _It was truly wishful thinking._

 _"Final Truth Seeker Orb." Kaguya intoned._

 _"SHINO!" Hinata screamed._

 _"LEE!" Naruto bellowed._

 _As they charged, they took the brunt of the attack, and were incinerated without a trace._

 _"But…" Naruto's pupils shrank. "What about what you told me… Shino? You… you weren't calm at all."_

 _Naruto stared, doing nothing as she watched Sasuke use his full body Susano'o and Gaara a wall of sand to shield their peers from the backlash of the devastating attack._

 _"And Lee… you… it's still dark…" Naruto murmured. "I thought… I thought you wanted to see spring?"_

 _But it had been useless. Naruto held Hinata in her arms as the gentle Hyuga wailed and sobbed for the loss of her last teammate._

 _There would be no spring. There was no hope._

 _What lied in wait for them all was death._

Naruto stared solemnly down at the village that was so much like her own had been, yet so very different at the same time. Of course, how could she have forgotten.

Her comrades… it had hurt to lose them. But their deaths still had a hold of her. Their suffering had formed her into the person she was currently.

She smoked.

She kept her hair back.

And she suppressed her emotions.

All things she had learned from them.

 _'No matter how much I run… or what I seal away, their ghosts still cling to me.'_ She thought _._

After traveling, plotting, and running, they'd come across Sai. He'd been freed from the Tsukuyomi, but no one had been able to find him.

At that point only Gaara, Sakura, Sasuke, Shikamaru, Temari, and Hinata had remained. Naruto wasn't sure exactly how Kankuro had fallen, but Gaara had said with a haunted look in his eyes that his brother had been torn apart.

Naruto hadn't mentioned it again.

 _There was a rare moment of silence on the battlefield._

 _Kaguya was asleep._

 _The shinobi found that the goddess could sleep for days on end, but when she went into sleep no one could locate her, therefore no one could defeat her. When she woke again, she always killed by the many._

 _Sai had taught them to paint. He said it was calming. And it was._

Even that habit had followed her to the new dimension.

But most of the paintings she created were of how the people she loved were slaughtered.

Naruto stood, and jumped from the monument.

She needed to move.

Maybe if she ran fast enough, she wouldn't have to remember anymore. But still...

As she took to the rooftops she remembered meeting the Kakashi of the world she was currently in. He'd still been in ANBU then. She immediately knew it was him. Her sensei.

Naruto had missed him so much, seeing his counterpart so young and unknowing of what could come, she'd lost it. Still covered in Fugaku's blood after stopping Itachi from killing Mikoto, Naruto lost it, remembering over and over again how Kaguya had killed her world's Kakashi.

 _"It's okay." Her sensei said quietly._

 _Again._

 _To save Naruto and Sasuke, Kakashi jumped before Kaguya once again. This time he was alone because Obito was long ago scattered across the winds, and shoved his students away from those spewing all killing bones._

 _Sakura's scream chilled Naruto to the core._

 _Both Naruto and Sasuke looked up, watching Kakashi smile with his eyes as his body crumbled to dust._

 _Naruto felt tears sting her eyes._

 _Because…_

 _He looked so relieved._

 _'He's free.' She thought._

 _Naruto wondered who would greet him in the afterlife._

 _"Rest in peace sensei…" She murmured, deafened by Sakura's wails. "We… we'll end this."_

Alternate Kakashi had been demanding what had happened as Naruto saw those images over and over again, demanding who she was. With Shisui still with her, he'd given a full report to the ANBU captain and his squad, and then they'd moved out, to start cleaning up the mess Itachi was ordered to make.

Shisui, as Naruto later learned, was a quick young man.

 _"She's a shinobi only Hokage-sama knows about. I'm sure he will explain later."_

Naruto didn't know how he'd picked up on the fact that only Hiruzen knew her, but she was grateful he did. Kakashi had left quickly after that, and without so much as a glance Naruto had fled, presumably to find the Hokage and ask him for advice as she struggled with her composure.

When Hiruzen told her she shouldn't place seals upon herself, she'd nodded, got him off her case, then left to do it anyway.

And here she was, six years later, Itachi who knows where, Akatsuki wiped out, Obito her loyal spy, and found out.

 _'I… I messed up.'_

Naruto stumbled over the roof tiles she was skipping over, throwing out her arm and using it to catapult herself over, flipping down into an alley. She scurried into the shadows, leaning against a shop's brick wall, trying to catch her breath. Trying to compose herself.

She was a giant contradiction.

She told the Jonin sensei that she would work with them but to herself she plotted how to get out of teaching.

She acted icy to the people around her but did things to tease them. Like wearing Obito's coat when she went for drinks with the sensei.

She'd done that because she knew they'd be confused. She'd done it because she knew it was funny to watch them speculate. She spouted crap about chopping people up to keep them at a distance, but she wouldn't deny finding it amusing when they thought she was creepy. It was like an ongoing prank. There were traces of her old self in everything she did.

She tried to alter the way she talked and thought to sound like someone more uniform, but fundamentally she was still the same.

She was the same in too deep bloody hearted person she'd always been, and it was tearing her apart.

If this is how she was with the seals, how helpless would she be without them?

She did not want to find out.

* * *

Kakashi left the Jonin lounge.

He had just confirmed with Asuma and Kurenai what days they were okay with Naruto taking over training.

And she would be taking over, because neither of them were very comfortable with working too closely with her. They'd just keep an eye on her when it was her turn to train the Genin.

After Kakashi had reported to them how Naruto's meeting went with his team, his fellow Jonin were understandably concerned.

Now all Kakashi needed to do was find Naruto and give her the paper that he had with the schedule written on it.

The last time the Hatake had seen the blonde she'd left rather abruptly.

 _"Well,"_ Naruto had murmured. _"I've learned all that I need to. For now I will leave. Tell the other Jounin we need to come up with a schedule for which days I help which teams."_

That's what she said, but she behaved as if she was trying to get out of teaching the Genin.

Well, he supposed even if she was trying to get the Sandaime to take her off the assignment, while she was still on it she'd do it to the best of her ability. It made sense, she had an excellent track record after all.

Not one failed mission to speak of.

 _'Why is she against teaching them though?'_

Kakashi checked her tree house, finding she wasn't there, stroking his masked chin and deciding he'd wander around a bit. He was bound to find her. She was known to roam the streets when not on missions or doing whatever else it is she did in her free time.

Really though, why did she not want to be a sensei?

Surely interacting with others couldn't be that bad? Kakashi did it and he was by no means a social butterfly. Hell, he'd been given a moniker by his peers when he was still in ANBU to attest to that.

 _Cold Blooded Kakashi._

But if he was cold Naruto was glacial. She didn't even make it seem like it was plausible to approach her while Kakashi had seemed unapproachable, but could be under certain circumstances.

It wasn't as if he just wanted her around, or just had to be her friend, but things would be a lot nicer if he could actually understand the things she did. If he could understand her. Maybe they would never be friends, after all, the world would go on if she remained the way she was as a loner, but while things went on they'd be a lot smoother if she wasn't such an enigma.

She taught his team that they should stay true to never abandoning their comrades, but she herself didn't want to be a comrade.

Kakashi was sure she'd been dealt enough heartache to make someone want to roll over and die, but didn't she know that as long as she was still alive she could be happy again?

 _'But then again what do I know?'_ Kakashi thought. _'Maybe she's never known happiness.'_

But she could learn it.

She was still alive after all. She was alive… but barely living.

 _'Maybe that's why Hokage-sama put her on this assignment.'_

Not only to help the Genin along, but to teach Naruto to live. That there was more than just her missions.

 _'Isn't that funny?'_ The Hatake thought, giving a bleak smile under his mask _. 'Someone living only for the mission. Sounds like someone I used to know_.'

Did that mean that Kakashi and the other Jonin sensei were to be the ones to make her realize that she wasn't alone?

It certainly would be tiresome, but nothing ever got done doing nothing.

She didn't have to become a super affectionate person overnight, or ever, she just had to know that there was more. And if she knew it, she needed to know that it was okay to be more than a ninja on a mission.

 _'I guess we're going to have to show her that we're all comrades.'_

And no matter what she thought or said, Naruto was a ninja of the Leaf, which meant they were comrades.

"Kami, where is that woman?" Kakashi muttered, snapping his little book closed as he strolled past a bakery, the evening sun catching his hair as his head snapped to the right.

 _'Ah, speak of the devil… I've caught the scent of the forest.'_

Kakashi turned to face the mouth of the alley he was before, his sharp sense of smell telling him that who he was looking for was hidden somewhere in the shadows.

"Naruto-san, I hope I'm not interrupting," The Hatake began blandly, projecting his voice. "But I've brought a schedule for you. Asuma and Kurenai wrote down when it'll be okay for you to meet their Genin."

Soundlessly, Naruto stepped into his line of sight, pulling her hood over her head and hiding her expression.

Kakashi's eye narrowed slightly.

 _'What was she doing?'_

Well, it wasn't any of his business anyways. Everyone had their quirks. He was sure it was nothing to be alarmed about.

Naruto held out her hand, white cloak shifting with her calm movement.

With a shrug Kakashi moved a little closer, pulling a crumpled piece of paper from one of the pockets in his flak jacket and placing it in her hand.

"Tomorrow you meet Kurenai's team." Kakashi informed her, speaking aloud the information he knew to already be on the paper.

Naruto nodded once.

"Thank you for bringing me this." Naruto said blankly.

"Don't mention it."

Kakashi shrugged again, not batting an eye as Naruto dispersed in a swirl of gold.

The Hatake put his hand in his pocket, the other bringing his Icha Icha back into his line of sight as he went on his way, towards home.

Kurenai had wanted to get her Genin's meet with Naruto over with first, so Asuma had agreed to go last.

 _'This'll be interesting.'_ Kakashi thought.

* * *

 _Sakura, Sasuke, Gaara, Temari, Hinata and Naruto crouched huddled in a circle._

 _The blonde Uzumaki's heart was still raw from watching Shikamaru be crushed half a day before._

 _The cover of night was thick, and they hid behind a few ridges of land in the many scattered rises across the wasteland created by Kaguya._

 _"I'm tired." Temari mumbled. "We have to end this."_

 _"She's too quick to seal." Sasuke said quietly._

 _"That method won't work." Gaara murmured._

 _"She must die." Hinata gritted firmly, staring at her clenched fists._

 _Sakura nodded, and turned to look at Naruto._

 _"Naru, when you were on lookout, the rest of us came up with a plan." The pinkette informed her. "Sai is on watch right now, but he's in on it too."_

 _Surprised, Naruto's gaze found Sakura's._

 _"Why did you do it without me?" She asked, alarmed._

 _"Because, we knew you wouldn't like it." Gaara spoke up._

 _"But if it's going to work…" Temari went on._

 _"You need two arms." Hinata finished firmly._

 _Naruto's blue eyes dropped to the stump of her right arm._

 _She'd been practicing, but she wasn't quite good enough to use one handed seals. She wasn't at one hundred percent. And she felt ever since she'd lost her arm, all she'd been doing was watching the people she cared about die._

 _"Naruto…" Sasuke began._

 _"We're sorry." Temari muttered, green eyes sliding away._

 _The blonde's brows furrowed._

 _"What…?"_

 _Hinata sprang forward, tackling Naruto onto her back. The Uzumaki was so surprised that she honestly couldn't bring herself to move._

 _Gaara's sand spilled from his gourd and cemented over her legs, keeping her from fighting. Hinata stayed on top of her, her gentle hand finding Naruto's remaining left one and intertwining their fingers. The Hyuga's forehead rested against Naruto's and she stared deeply into the blonde's eyes._

 _"It's the only way." Hinata whispered._

 _Sasuke drew his chokutō._

 _Naruto paled._

 _"What are you guys doing!?"_

 _Sasuke moved, his blade a flash of silver._

 _Naruto jerked, freezing as she heard Sakura scream in agony._

 _She heard a muted thump, but Hinata's other had held her chin, keeping Naruto's gaze trained on her._

 _The blonde's pupils shrank when she scented blood on the dusty air._

 _"Teme!" Naruto croaked, unable to look away from Hinata as the girl held her. "What did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO!?"_

 _Sakura whimpered a bit, and Naruto heard her suck in a steadying breath._

 _"Temari, please… help me bandage this?" The med nin whispered._

 _"Sure," Temari agreed grimly. "Whatever you need."_

 _Naruto heard Temari shift, and move, and then she stiffened, deaf to the comforting words Hinata whispered against her lips when she felt a horrible pinch, and she felt a section of her stump slide from her body with a splurt of crimson, severed by Sasuke's blade._

 _Naruto bit her lips, choking off her cry of pain._

 _She still was not allowed to move as she felt slick, bloodied, flesh pressed against her spewing wound._

 _She felt Sakura's chakra healing her, it stung fiercely as her flesh was mended. She could feel that she had an elbow again, but the weight beneath it was unfamiliar._

 _"What… what did you guys do?" Naruto rasped._

 _She closed her eyes, the tears that had steadily been welling in Hinata's eyes falling onto Naruto's pale cheeks, trickling down because she could no longer she'd her own._

 _"We did what it takes, Naruto." Sasuke said._

 _Naruto was allowed to sit up after a moment, Gaara's sand releasing her lower half._

 _Hinata sat on her hips and embraced her._

 _Naruto turned her head to look at Sakura, taking in the bags under her eyes and how she trembled with barely suppressed pain._

 _Naruto's blue eyes dropped to the hand that had healed her arm, and then they found the stump that Sakura was left with after healing her own arm onto Naruto._

 _"Now," Gaara said._

 _"Sasuke knows a jutsu." Temari went on._

 _"He'll teach it to you." Hinata whispered._

 _"And then, Kaguya dies." Sasuke declared._

 _Naruto stared at Sakura, watching her green eyed friend nod slowly._

 _And Naruto knew._

 _Soon._

 _Soon it'd be over._

* * *

 _Finally, she'd learned the jutsu._

 _Gaara had learned it alongside her, and everyone agreed it was time._

 _Temari stood, winds kicking up around her as she called on the torrents of her will._

 _"KAGUYA!" Temari bellowed. "Face us you ancient bitch!"_

 _The wind user whipped her fan from her back, flinging it open and summoning a gust of destructive wind._

 _"Let's go." Sai muttered, ripping open a scroll to scrawl across it lightning quick. "Ninja Art: Super Beast Scroll!"_

 _A giant hawk sprang to life, and he leapt onto its back, the painted beast riding the winds summoned by Temari._

 _"Twin Lion Fists!" Hinata chanted, hands flaring with blue flame, fierce lions coming to life around her fists._

 _Naruto stood up, Sasuke on her left, and Gaara on her right, their minds set and spirits determined._

 _Several meters in front of them Kaguya pulled herself from a warp in space and time._

 _The solemn goddess levitated, robes swaying, disturbed by the angry winds._

 _Hinata charged, Sakura not far behind her, remaining hand fashioned like an arrowhead, glowing with lethal green chakra._

 _Sakura threw herself into an aerial._

 _"Heaven Kick of Pain!" She flipped, her leg extended in a drop kick, and when it met the ground, it splintered under her might._

 _Cracks skittered across the ground, segments of destroyed earth jerking up, traveling the rest of the distance to Kaguya, before a piece of earth jolted up and knocked the lazily floating goddess askew._

 _It was just enough for Hinata to zip forward and slam one of her glowing fists into the goddess' face. Kaguya flew back, and just then Sai appeared above her, dropping paper bombs._

 _Kaguya seemed to glitch as she avoided the resulting series of explosions, hands raising, ready to call on her All Killing Ash Bones._

 _Naruto released a battle cry and shot forward, Gaara and Sasuke at her sides._

 _The earth shifted, great arms made of sand rising , two on either side of the goddess slammed together, trapping her with crushing force._

 _They began to glow, and Naruto knew the goddess was using lava to turn the sand to glass._

 _"Now Naruto!" Hinata screamed, leaping towards Kaguya's trapped from._

 _"There's no other chance!" Sakura yelled, following closely._

 _When the sand became transparent and shattered, Hinata latched onto Kaguya's left arm, holding it in a vice grip. Sakura appeared at the woman's right, doing the same after slicing the nerves of her right arm into uselessness with her chakra scalpel._

 _Naruto blurred, finishing a set of forbidden handseals just as Sasuke and Gaara did, the air distorting as she appeared right before Kaguya, brandishing Sakura's gifted fist, the hand glowing gold with her chakra._

 _Naruto Uzumaki met the blank eyes of Kaguya Ōtsutsuki._

 _Her fist punched straight through Kaguya's chest, scraping past bone, sliding past muscle, and clenching harshly around the woman's selfish rotten heart._

 _Gaara and Sasuke blurred behind the woman, punching through her from behind, and Naruto felt her hands meet theirs inside of Kaguya's torso._

 _Red trickled out of the Rabbit Goddess' mouth, and Naruto felt satisfied as those dead eyes widened in horror, even as the woman used her last breath to stab her fingers into the necks of Sakura and Hinata._

 _Naruto, Sasuke, and Gaara continued on anyway, even as the flesh on Hinata's face crumbled away, revealing bone. Even as Sakura smiled in triumph, and began falling to dust._

 _Naruto pulled as much as she could of Kaguya's power into herself, and she knew behind the woman Sasuke and Gaara were doing the same._

 _Somewhere behind Naruto Temari fell to her knees in bitter victory._

 _Sai landed, dark eyes watching as the forms of Sakura and Hinata fell to nothing._

 _Naruto screamed, and pulled Kaguya's heart from her chest._

 _"You did it." Hinata smiled._

 _"Good job." Sakura whispered._

 _And then there was silence._

* * *

Naruto awoke with a start.

Her back was leaning against her sword, which was inserted into the slot built into the floor by the bed she rarely used.

Blue eyes lifted, checking the clock above the door of her bedroom.

It was 6:30 am.

She was to meet Kurenai's team in thirty minutes.

 _'To the battlefield then.'_ She thought, pushing herself up to get ready.

Naruto wasn't sure she'd be ready to remove her seals ever, but… you could never be too sure of anything in terms of emotions.

Maybe something would change, and someday she could trust herself to be stronger.

Until then, she would remain hesitant to believe that good things could reach her again. She would remain hesitant to stand in the light and away from her intimately known darkness.

But no matter what, she would try her hardest to keep as many as she could from joining her in the dark.

If she could do nothing, if she was sure of nothing, she was sure of that.


	7. Witch Magic

**I don't own Naruto.**

* * *

 _"One of the secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others."_

 _-Lewis Carroll_

* * *

Naruto didn't know what to expect when she stepped onto training ground eight at seven o'clock sharp.

She had absolutely no idea. But it certainly wasn't the sight she was greeted by.

Kiba sat off to the left, Akamaru between his spread legs as he rubbed his puppy's belly affectionately.

Shino was way off to the right, examining a line of ants traveling up the bark of a tree. Hinata sat near the entrance, shyly fiddling with her fingers, afraid to look up and make eye contact with either of her teammates.

 _'They're… they're ignoring each other?'_ Naruto thought. _'They're not even remotely close to each other.'_

Of course Naruto knew they'd never been friends in the Academy, but you'd think being put on a team would at least make them interact with each other.

Naruto's brows furrowed behind the cover of her hood.

 _'Well, at least now I know what I'll test them on.'_ She thought. _'Time to work a little magic...'_

The blonde woman could sense Kurenai's presence hidden behind the treeline, and knew the crimson eyed woman would be watching her closely. The woman's chakra signature was a little sharp, and Naruto knew she was prepared to step in at any moment if things got out of hand.

 _'Looks like Kakashi told her about my meet with his team.'_

Naruto rolled her eyes.

She'd calmed down from the little breakdown she'd had the day before, so after she met Asuma's team as well, and brought all the genin together for one final group lesson, the blonde would be talking to the Sandaime again.

She had more pressing matters to worry about then training Genin. Their sensei were more than capable, so really the old coot had no excuse to be trying to force the job on her.

 _'I don't want to do this, but before I get out of it I want them to know at least one thing that I wished I had at that age.'_

"Hello," Naruto called out, announcing herself.

Hinata flinched, turning slightly, alarmed to find a stranger standing so close to her.

Naruto could almost hear what the girl was thinking.

 _'How did I not notice her!?'_ The little Hyuga wondered.

Kiba hopped to his feet, Akamaru following, Shino calmly turning to face the intruder.

"Hey, you must be the chick Sensei told us about this morning!" Kiba exclaimed, pointing rudely.

Shino pushed his sunglasses further up his nose.

"Kurenai-sensei informed us that we would meet a new part time sensei today with the name Naruto-san." Shino intoned. "She said that you would administer a test for us."

"That is correct." Naruto returned, equally calm.

"She also said you might be creepy and try to scare us." Kiba said, placing his hands on his hips. "But I'll tell ya, me and Akamaru don't scare so easy lady."

The puppy barked in exuberant agreement.

Naruto smiled, and had to stop herself from shaking her head.

"K-Kiba-san t-that's not t-true…" Hinata chided quietly. "Sensei said t-that N-Naruto-san m-might u-use k-killing intent…"

"Whatever, same diff." Kiba huffed, sniffing imperiously.

Shino seemed slightly put off by Kiba's attitude, but didn't say anything.

Hinata, who had stood up shrank into herself after the dismissal.

The blonde held back a sigh.

Hinata was too shy to be firm, Shino was too passive to speak up, and Kiba wasn't interested in anything that mattered.

 _'What is this?'_ Naruto thought, irritated. _'Nevermind. I'll just nip it in the bud.'_

"Okay, I will begin my assessment." The woman informed flatly. "All of you line up."

Hinata scurried closer to her teammates, Shino shuffled over, and Kiba bounded to the center.

Hinata stood to Kiba's right and Shino to his left.

The blonde stood in front of the little blue haired Hyūga, letting a little intent slip from her just enough to make the girl sweat.

"You, what can you bring to this team in terms of skill?"

Hinata's lavender eyes widened and the girl tried to stutter out a response, cheeks flushing in alarm.

"Okay, be quiet." Naruto ordered, and instantly the girl's mouth snapped shut. "A doormat. That's what you are. You will never accomplish anything because you are too concerned what others think. If you don't believe in yourself, why should anyone else?"

Hinata's face burned hotter than peppers, and then her shoulders dropped and she stared down at her feet.

Kiba bristled.

"What the heck? You can't talk to people like that!" He barked. "What's your _problem_ lady!?"

"Be quiet boy." Naruto uttered darkly.

The Inuzuka recoiled, eyes going wide as Naruto stepped to the side and before him.

"A loudmouth." The blonde declared flatly. "Use your brain. You react with no thought, and that often only makes things worse. You can help no one this way."

Kiba sputtered incoherently in rage and Akamaru whimpered, hiding behind his master's legs as Naruto stepped before Shino.

"Background noise." Naruto intoned. "It's okay to be quiet, but not when you should speak. If you believe their is injustice, speak. If you can do something when there is something wrong, do it. Otherwise, why are you even there?"

Shino looked down, dropping his hand at his side instead of adjusting his glasses like he'd been moving to.

"You know what?" Kiba spat, throwing his arms up after finding his words. "Who do you think you are? We barely even know you and you think you can just talk to us all crazy like that?"

 _'Now I can see why people said Kiba and I were similar when we were younger.'_ The blonde thought wryly. _'This little punk is a certified hothead.'_

"Why are you so insulted?" Naruto asked blankly. "Because it's the truth? If you don't like it, rectify it."

"Why don't you take a long walk off a-"

Hinata squeaked as Naruto grabbed her by the arm and yanked her closer, whirling the girl around to face her alarmed teammates as she summoned a chakra scalpel around her bandaged hand and held it to the little Hyūga's jugular.

"You know what? You've made me angry." Naruto intoned. "I think I'll cut off Hinata's head to teach you when to close your mouth Kiba."

"W-w-what?" Hinata stuttered.

"Wait no!" Kiba yelled, eyes wide, reaching out a useless hand. "T-that's just messed up, she didn't even do anything!"

"But you did." Naruto countered. "You didn't seem to care about what could happen when you were shooting your mouth off."

Kiba paled.

Hinata trembled as Naruto's chakra scalpel drew closer.

Naruto sensed Kurenai's chakra growing agitated, and knew she needed to wrap up her little display before the woman stepped in and ruined what she was trying to get across.

"Let her go." Shino muttered.

"S-Shino?" Hinata gasped.

But the Aburame's hidden gaze was trained on Naruto.

"Hinata-san does not deserve to be punished so severely. Why? Because she is innocent." The boy said. "Kiba-san does not deserve such punishment either. I am sure he has learned from his mistake."

Kiba nodded vigorously.

"Listen, I'm sorry okay?" The dog lover said. "I was being rude. I know that… I just… I dunno I wasn't thinking!"

"K-Kiba-san… S-Shino-san…" Hinata whispered, touched.

"Alright." Naruto allowed, releasing the Hyūga heir and canceling the flow of chakra to her scalpel.

The little girl wasted no time skittering away from the cloaked stranger and back over to her teammates. She frowned slightly, and in return Naruto smiled behind the cover of her hood.

"Are you upset Hinata?" Naruto asked.

Hinata blushed, apparently outraged by such a question.

"Y-yes!" She huffed.

Kiba and Shino looked at her, surprised. She froze, surprised by herself as well.

Naruto smiled even more, glad they couldn't see it. It would destroy the image she'd created for herself.

"Alright." The blonde nodded. "Then I have something to say."

The Genin eyed her suspiciously, and she held back a snort.

"Do not shoulder everything alone." Naruto intoned. "Not your pain, not your thoughts, and not your passion. Your team will hold you up when your knees buckle. They will have different perspectives and ideas towards musings, and enthusiasm during dark times will lift a weary spirit still willing to fight. Do you understand?"

"Y-yes." Hinata stuttered, lavender eyes wide as she studied the woman in barely contained awe, already seeming to realise that threatening her had all been apart of her "lesson".

"Affirmative." Shino nodded, pushing his shades up firmly, blooming respect towards the blonde obvious in his posture.

"Yeah…" Kiba muttered, kicking a rock as he shoved his hands into his pockets, looking down and pouting a bit.

"And what is it that you understand?" Naruto asked blankly.

Hinata poked her fingers together nervously, face tilting down meekly before her eyes traveled to either of her teammates in uncertainty.

 _'Well, one day isn't enough to undo years of low self esteem.'_ Naruto reminded herself. _'But one day is enough for a start.'_

Seeing Hinata was too nervous, Shino stepped forward.

"That we truly are allies, in more than name. We cannot just come together and not be together." The Aburame explained. "We were put on teams for a reason. Why? So that we may complete tasks to the best of our abilities."

"Y-yeah! What he means is, we can do a lot more together… than alone." Kiba muttered gruffly, Akamaru barking cheerfully in agreement."Our teammates… they're not just for show. We gotta… you know, be an actual team and stuff, and have each other's backs."

"We have t-to also be st-strong people, s-so that t-together w-we're a strong t-team…" Hinata murmured, cheeks flaring red when she noticed everyone was looking at her.

"That's right." Naruto finally said, relieving the girl when she brought the attention back to herself. "You are not alone. That is my first lesson to you. Remember that there are people you can trust and rely on in the field, but you must also be one that can be trusted and relied upon. Even when you have been separated, or maybe on a solo mission, remember that you have people to return to. Remember the things you've learned fighting alongside them, so that you may successfully return to them."

All three Genin stared at the solemn hooded woman, taken aback by her words, but no less moved.

"If you have realized that you are not alone, you are shinobi." Naruto continued. "No shinobi fights only for, or only by himself. Not in this village. Do you understand?"

"Hai!" They all answered.

"Good." Naruto nodded once. "You pass. So I suppose, that means I'll be seeing you soon."

With that, her form burst into a golden glow, and she was gone quicker than a whisper of breeze.

Slowly, the young teens turned to look at each other.

"Man…" Kiba laughed nervously. "That was kinda scary!"

Akamaru barked loudly, feeling the same.

"Indubitably." Shino agreed quietly.

Hinata nodded in agreement.

"B-but… i-it was a g-good l-lesson…" The little Hyuga stuttered.

Her teammates couldn't agree more.

* * *

Kurenai frowned faintly when Naruto appeared with a flash of gold at her side, hidden in the trees behind her students.

"That was a harsh way to teach them that." The woman murmured, turning her crimson gaze to Naruto's azure one.

"But no less accurate." Naruto returned emotionlessly. "Sometimes pulling punches takes away from the importance of something."

"Yes," Kurenai allowed, glossy lips pursing. "But you can be firm without being cruel."

"Perhaps," Naruto shrugged. "Though, wouldn't you prefer they choke on fear now and overcome it then to choke on blood in the field for ignorance?"

Kurenai flinched.

 _'My, she certainly doesn't pull any punches.'_ The woman thought a little tersely.

But she supposed it was fine.

Experiencing the raw power of someone else would be good for them. They would know the depth of their own abilities and work to deepen them, growing stronger together and covering each other's weaknesses so that they became a successful unit.

Yes, she much preferred them living and prospering then "choking on blood", as Naruto so crudely put it.

"I'll be leaving now."

Naruto didn't give Kurenai a chance to respond before she was gone.

"Hm." The genjutsu mistress hummed thoughtfully.

 _'Though she's very cutthroat, it doesn't take away from the importance of what she was telling them.'_ Kurenai thought. _'I wonder… what made her that way? She's so cold, but the fact that she's gone out of her way to instil such knowledge into them shows that she's not cold at all.'_

Kurenai tucked a strand of hair behind her ear in thought, feeling slightly uncertain.

 _'Perhaps I really have misjudged her.'_ She thought. _'Would a sociopath or psychopath go out of their way to spare children of future pain?'_

Kurenai stepped from behind the tree serving as her cover, and began making her way to her team, taking a breath as she broke past the treeline.

She didn't even have to muse on that thought further.

No.

No they would not.

 _'So Naruto-san,'_ Kurenai thought, smiling when her team noticed her and waving slightly. _'What are you then? Who are you?'_

Kurenai found herself honestly wanting to know.

* * *

Naruto roamed the back alleys of Konoha, deep in thought.

 _'I wonder if the things I've tried to teach team seven and eight have actually sunk in?'_ She thought. _'Did they actually take what I said to heart, and will the lessons actually help them in future situations?'_

The blonde supposed only time would tell. She hoped she actually had helped some and hadn't been wasting her breath. Kami knew every last one of those brats could be stubborn if it so suited them.

She snorted under her breath.

And then she cursed inwardly for her lack of control for doing so with her little shadow trailing behind her.

"What's that?" Her tail chimed, annoyingly cheerful. "Had a funny thought Naru-chan?"

"Of course," She returned blithely, "Who wouldn't consider the thought of you being smeared across the asphalt funny?"

"Oh ouch," Shisui chuckled, stepping out of the shadows as she turned to face him. "You're so cold Naruto, why is that?"

"Did you want something important or did you just follow me back here to be a pest?"

"Oh love," Shisui cooed. "How you snap like a trap. It's really very unbecoming of a lady."

"Good thing I never claimed to be such a ridiculous thing," Naruto retorted blankly. "Now, what do you want?"

"This is different," Shisui observed, cocking his head to the side. "And before you say it again, I didn't really want anything. I saw you walk back here on my way home and I thought I'd just say "hi"."

"Hi." Naruto deadpanned. "And what do you mean? What's different?"

"This," Shisui gestured between the two of them. "How you're reacting to my presence. The fact that you're reacting at all beyond cold indifference. Trying on a new mask today? This one's cold to the point of cutting. The other one just makes you feel uncomfortable."

Naruto clenched her teeth behind the cover of her hood.

"You really think you're smart don't you, Uchiha?" She murmured. "Well, you're not. There is no mask, I'm just a frigid bitch. You should get used to it."

With that, she hopped up, onto the rooftops.

Really, she should've known it wouldn't have been that easy.

* * *

Shisui followed her up.

He could sense that he hadn't set her off yet. He didn't want to upset her or anything, really he was only curious, but he'd leave her alone as soon as he sensed he was truly crossing any lines.

"I finally got Sasuke to tell me about your first lesson to him." Shisui spoke up, traveling beside her as she calmly made her way from roof to roof. "It was interesting to hear about. I think it really struck a chord in him, even if he'd never admit it."

Naruto said nothing.

Shisui smiled.

"Thank you for teaching him that, Naruto."

"I didn't do it for him." She finally said. "It was a lesson for all of them."

The Uchiha paused as something clicked, and then he was beside her again.

"So you admit that you care about the things they know before they're sent in the field?" He asked.

"Do you care about having a tongue?" Naruto asked blankly. "Because if not I could cut it out for you."

 _'Getting too close to home huh?'_ He thought. _'She's trying to make me uncomfortable so I'll back off.'_

But he wouldn't. Not yet anyway. He hadn't pushed enough.

"So that's it." Shisui murmured, a sweet smile on his lips. "You like to walk around with that blank shell on but inside you're really very animated, aren't you?"

Naruto stiffened, and if he hadn't been looking he wouldn't have spotted the change.

"You… you're a hothead!" He chuckled, running a hand through his hair. "You actually _force_ yourself to act emotionless, don't you?"

Good Lord how could nobody have seen this? Of course, he always knew that there was more to her, there had to be to a person who went out of their way to spare someone else of pain, but Shisui had never really seen the hints of the depth that was hidden inside of this woman.

He wanted to know more.

Naruto's hand flew up, clenching the hilt of her claymore, though she made no other move.

"You're good." Shisui observed. "But now I see you. And if anybody had just taken the time to look they'd notice it too. You're not that calm at all, are you Naruto?"

The blonde's hand tightened around her sword, and Shisui knew he was getting to her because of it. But that was good. That's what he wanted.

He wanted her to react.

Because the dead eyed stare she tried to give didn't suit her.

 _'I bet she's much more interesting behind that mask.'_ He thought. _'Behind all of them. What kind of person are you, Naruto?'_

"What do you want from me Shisui?" Naruto asked blankly, dropping her hand from her sword.

And Shisui knew. He knew she was forcing herself to react calmly, to be uncaring instead of lashing out.

"Why are you so afraid?" He asked softly.

Naruto turned to leave.

"I'm sorry!" He blurted, a little embarrassed, pleased when she stopped in her tracks, the slight tilt of her head even as she stood with her back to him telling the Uchiha that she was listening.

"I'm sorry, I went too far. I'm not going to ask you to show me all the skeletons in your closet." He went on, his composure returning. "To be honest I don't really know what I want from you. I guess… I just really want to know you. I want… I want to know you, Naruto. Can't you just let me be your friend?"

"Nobody should be my friend." Naruto murmured.

Shisui tilted his head slightly. That wasn't a refusal or an acceptance. Instead, she was speaking as if it would be an injustice for her to be someone's friend.

Now why would she think that?

 _'What are you punishing yourself for, Naruto?'_ The Uchiha wondered.

He didn't think she liked being alone… she probably felt that she deserved to be for some reason, and she forced herself to be because of this belief. She didn't allow herself to get closer to others, and she seemed to think that doing so would be wrong of her.

"But if they _want_ to?" Shisui pushed, watching her unreadable back.

He wondered if like that she allowed her expression to change, if she let herself show what she was feeling and thinking when she knew no one could see it.

"They wouldn't want to if they knew." Naruto said darkly.

"Well, it's none of my business, so maybe I'll never "know"." Shisui muttered. "But still, I want to know you, not something that you've done. You get it?"

Naruto stiffened again.

"Have a good day, Shisui." The blonde intoned, shoulders relaxing as she began walking away.

Shisui grinned.

"I'll take that as a maybe." He called after her. "See you later Naruto."

She didn't respond, but he knew that he'd put something on her mind.

He wasn't out for her secrets, or to change her. He really just wanted to know the person that she was.

Shisui wanted to be Naruto's friend.

And no matter how she acted or what she did he could feel that she needed and wanted a friend.

 _'This'll be interesting.'_ He thought.

With that, Shisui turned on his heel and went in the opposite direction.

* * *

 _'What the hell?'_ Naruto thought, slamming her door behind her and leaning against it heavily after removing her sword. _'What the hell was that!'_

Naruto leaned her sword up against the wall beside her.

"What did I just do?" She asked herself.

Why hadn't she just blown him off coldly like she'd done to every person in this world that made a move to be closer to her? Why had she indulged him for that long? React like someone who had no idea how to control their emotions?

What was going _on?_

It had to be because of Jiji, because of the talk she'd had with him the day before. He'd brought to her mind the seals she had placed on herself to feel less, and because she was aware of them, they weren't that effective. She knew it was wrong to place the seals, but she needed them.

She was so weak.

She _needed_ them.

"God please... just _don't_." She murmured, back sliding down the door so that she could sit and place her head in her hands. "Just please… don't make me feel. Please _please_ do not make me feel."

She just had to remember what she decided she was going to do. She wasn't going to be a failure anymore.

Naruto was going to make a difference, so that the people in this world would know peace. She could endure this. If it was for them… this little bit of uncertainty, this little bit of pain... It would be worth it. For just a little while, she could endure this.

"I can do it." She whispered. "I can… I _can._ Right…?"


	8. Witch's Words

**I don't own Naruto or the cover image.**

* * *

 _"Infuse your life with action. Don't wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future."_

 _-Bradley Whitford_

* * *

She woke up, showered, brushed her teeth, and got dressed. It was only ten a.m, and that very day she'd meet the mini team 10.

 _'One more lesson and I'll talk to Jiji.'_

Naruto had to talk to him. She had to make him understand that she could not do this. She needed the Sandaime to understand, that being alone was not only good for her, but for others. She was dangerous. She wasn't exactly the most sane person around, and if she kept being forced to interact with others she didn't know what she'd do…

Naruto could no longer trust herself. Not with children at least. She needed to make Hiruzen understand that he shouldn't trust her with children either.

The blonde sheathed her sword across her back, and then grabbed her cloak, swinging it over her shoulders, pulling the hood up to hide her features in shadows.

She walked over to her front door, closing and locking up behind herself. She paused, wondering once again why she was even doing what she was. Destruction, blood, and so. much. _suffering_ flashed behind her eyes, and then she took off into the trees.

* * *

Naruto entered Team Ten's training grounds, hidden gaze darkening at the children in the grassy field surrounded by trees.

But honestly, it was to be expected. Shikamaru was lazing about under a tree, arms folded behind his head, and Choji sat by his side, legs out in front of him as he enjoyed a bag of chips. Ino sat on the other side of Shikamaru, holding a nail file, working on the nails of her right hand with it.

Instead of jumping right into introducing herself to them, she shunshined behind them, to the trees where she sensed their sensei was hidden, observing. Asuma blinked, turning to look at the obscured blonde.

"Morning Naruto-san." He greeted, lit cigarette already between his lips. "Trying a new approach today?"

"Hello." Naruto returned emotionlessly, and then she admitted, "Just a bit different. I thought I might inform you beforehand that I'm going to tear your Genin apart."

Asuma stared for a long moment, and then his mouth quirked into an amused grin.

"Shit, and here I was ready to give speeches about why it's okay to crap yourself the first time you experience killing intent."

Naruto would admit that his demeanor threw her off, but he was so pleasantly laid back she couldn't help but feel her perpetually (yet expertly hidden) raised hackles lower.

"Oh?" Naruto said instead.

"Kurenai might have warned me about how you handled her Genin." The Sarutobi offered, giving her a wry grin.

The side of Naruto's hidden mouth twitched, but her only visible features, her blue eyes, gave nothing away.

"She dislikes me." Naruto said in a tone that could have been either flatly questioning, or flatly suggesting.

"Uh… no I think maybe skeptical is more accurate." Asuma told her, looking at her seriously. "She was a little upset about your methods, but she respects that you got through to the brats."

Naruto's hidden brows rose slightly, surprised by both his honesty and the words used to express it.

"Really now." The blonde murmured.

Asuma shrugged, and then he smirked slightly.

"I warned my brats about you and your testing methods."

"Of course you did." Naruto said, resisting the urge to shake her head. "That boy. The Nara, he's had time to prepare a plan for his teammates."

"Oh?" Asuma took a drag off his cigarette, chuckling a little. "Picked up on that huh? Yeah he's brilliant, and when they all put effort into something they're a pretty good unit."

"Perhaps, but they are unmotivated." Naruto said, eyeing him. "At least not motivated about the right things."

Asuma was noticeably sheepish at her deduction.

"Noticed that too huh?" He muttered, wincing slightly. "But yeah. I haven't really been able to stress to them the importance of drive yet."

"Hm, well I've already decided on what to teach them today. If your approach hasn't been working, I will use mine." The blonde said. "And since they've been informed of my methods I'll just have to be a bit more… firm."

"I shoulda just kept my mouth shut." Asuma grumbled, blowing out a jet of smoke. "Whatever. As long as they're okay afterwards, I won't step in. Just tread carefully, Naruto-san. They're kids, no matter what symbol they're wearing."

"Your message is well received." Naruto answered blankly. "I will keep what you say in mind."

Asuma nodded, his expression deceptively lazy, because his eyes were studying her shrewdly. His eyes made her uncomfortable, because though they were his, they were expressing the same sort of quiet curiosity that people had been regarding her with more and more often. She didn't like it. Naruto would much rather be fearfully ignored. She was safe that way. Curiosity lead to questions, and questions lead to thoughts she'd rather not exercise.

 _'Don't think about it.'_ She told herself. _'Don't think. Don't feel.'_

Finally, he stopped training that piercing gaze on her, shrugging again with a lazy smile.

"Go get 'em then."

"Of course." She deadpanned, blurring from existence.

She appeared before the three children lazing about in the clearing, clearly startling them, though Shikamaru held back his surprise more gracefully.

"Good morning." Naruto intoned, sliding more firmly into the character that she had let slip slightly in Asuma's company.

Inside she hissed at herself for being such an easily influenced idiot, and encased her heart in ice.

"H...hi." Ino stuttered.

Choji stopped eating, staring at her with a slightly agape mouth. Shikamaru was staring with half lidded eyes, but he was watching her every move.

"My name is Naruto." The blonde began. "As you are well aware, I am here to teach your team something. What you take from the lesson is up to you. But you will listen, do you understand?"

They all nodded.

"Good, now stand up."

The children followed suit with the order, Shikamaru slid his hands into his pockets. Ino laced her fingers behind her back, and Choji slipped his hand into his pouch, seemingly only to put away his half eaten chip bag. Naruto's keen ears picked up on the slight shifting of metal, and she mentally applauded them for immediately preparing for combat.

"You, girl. Come here." Naruto ordered.

Ino flinched at the woman's dead tone, but she took a step towards her superior.

"Wait." Shikamaru said. "What do you want her for?"

No one got the chance to blink before Naruto was right before the lazy genius, looming over him like a slasher did their helpless prey. The hidden blonde radiated dark intent, and she could feel the children's apprehension rise.

Naruto watched Shikamaru swallow slightly as he peered up at her, his posture stiff and his eyes knowing. Knowing that if she decided to do something, that he would be powerless.

"What good is being clever when you are too weak for your brain to be of any use?"

Shikamaru's eyes widened slightly.

"H-hey! Don't think that's gonna work!" Ino blurted from the sidelines. "Asuma-sensei told us how you give tests. We know you're not gonna hurt us. You're just here to scare us or something!"

"Maybe," Naruto allowed, turning away from the frozen Nara before looking back at Ino. "But isn't the knowledge that I could hurt you if I wanted to enough to make you want to do better?"

"Huh?" Ino asked, brows furrowing in confusion.

Instead of answering her inquiry, Naruto moved too fast for the Genin to comprehend, grabbing hold of Shikamaru's throat, lifting him up with one hand and absolutely no effort. He cried out in alarm, but Naruto didn't do more than toss him behind her.

"Oh my god!" Choji exclaimed, watching as his best friend landed flat on his back with a gasp, the wind knocked out of him.

"Shikamaru!" Ino cried, rounding on Naruto. "What's your prob-"

The young teen's rage was cut off when the blonde woman suddenly had her by the throat, holding her up with one hand so that her legs dangled uselessly. Ino's eyes bulged with fear, her hands coming up in an attempt to free herself to no avail. The girl's legs kicked out, slamming into Naruto's cloaked abdomen, but to everyone's horror Naruto didn't even twitch. She was like a statute, cold and unmoveable. Shikamaru had regained his bearings, and he stood up shakily, eyeing Naruto's back darkly.

"What is the point of potential if you do nothing with it?" Naruto asked, as if she didn't have a child held in the air by the throat. "Look at you. You're so pitifully weak, and yet you do nothing to rectify it."

Tears stung Ino's eyes, but Naruto wasn't squeezing her neck. The girl had trouble breathing, but she was not suffocating.

"HEY!" Choji exploded.

Naruto turned her head to look at the boy, but she did not release Ino, who simply hung in her grasp defeatedly when she realized her struggling was futile, only making it harder to take in air. She huffed and puffed in Naruto's hold, but she did nothing more to resist.

"What." Naruto deadpanned.

Choji was beet red with rage, his fists balled up at his sides.

"You're a Jonin! Of course we can't do anything about how you're treating us!" The usually mild tempered Akimichi yelled. "You know you're stronger so why are you doing this? _LET INO GO!_ "

Naruto did just that, flinging Ino to the side, and the girl screamed, thrown so swiftly that she had no time to right herself before she was slamming on her back in the grass and sliding back several feet.

"Do you really think you have the right to complain?" Naruto asked Choji. "What's the point of having immense strength if you are too mentally weak to use it? Why didn't you do anything to help your friends when I treated them like that?"

"I-I…" Choji quickly lost steam in the face of uncertainty, realizing that Naruto's attention was on him. But he shook his head and glared at her before answering more surely. " _Because!_ "

Naruto tilted her head noticeably.

"Because what?"

"BECAUSE!" Choji bellowed, eyes welling with helpless tears.

"I see." Naruto said. "Just like Shikamaru knew instinctively that action was futile, he did nothing, simply waiting for me to hurt him and get it over with. Just like Ino knew that fighting me anymore was pointless, she quickly discarded her basic human instinct to get away from harm, waiting for me to stop. You did nothing because you knew that your abilities couldn't match my own. You watched me hurt what was important to you because you knew that there was nothing you could do about it."

"So _what?_ " Ino croaked, lying on her back, staring angrily up at the sky. "What about it? What's the point of saying all this stuff? You're stronger and we all knew it from the start. Did you just come here to rub that in?"

"You all make me wonder." Naruto began blankly, ignoring the teen's rant. "Why are you even ninja? Because your parents were? Because you were told to be?"

They didn't answer, and Naruto pushed out a bit more dark intent, just enough to make them start sweating.

"Foolish." She stated in the same dead tone. "You have no true will, no true motivation to be shinobi. The only reason you would survive to make it to the Chunin Exams is because your sensei would not let you be killed. Do you realize how pathetic that is? If you have no purpose you have no place in the shinobi world. Do you understand?"

"Wait…" Shikamaru spoke up, posture sagging slightly as he stared at the woman's back in alarm. "Are you…?"

"Do you understand Shikamaru?" Naruto asked, turning to look at the wiry boy. "Why don't you tell your teammates what I'm getting at."

The Nara sighed, plopping down on his bottom. Ino sat up to look at him, and Choji studied his friend as well.

"Why are we ninja?" Shikamaru suddenly asked, looking between Ino and Choji. "What are we trying to accomplish?"

Ino blinked, taken aback.

"I… uh…" The ash blonde stuttered.

Usually she'd say something like marry Sasuke, but she had the feeling that Naruto wasn't looking for something like that.

"Choji?" The Nara prompted, drilling his eyes into his friend.

Choji froze, like a deer right before imminent collision. After several beats, the Akimichi sighed defeatedly and sat down as well.

"I dunno." Choji admitted. "I just always knew I was supposed to be a ninja. But I guess I sort of forgot that I need to have a real reason too."

"Yeah…" Ino murmured, staring down at her lap, shoulders slumped.

Shikamaru sighed.

"I know what I want after I retire." The Nara said, looking at Naruto, shrugging. "But I'll admit that right now… I have no idea what I'm doing. But that's what you meant, right Naruto-san? You pointed out something positive about us all, but we all share the same flaw."

"Wait…" Ino breathed, looking up, looking between her teammates and the cloaked stranger. "You're not saying that…!"

"Oh." Choji said, sounding a little lost. "She was pointing out that we don't even try to improve. That we probably have goals that we don't even think about or try to build towards."

"In short, we're lazy and unmotivated." Shikamaru stated.

"Yes, exactly." Naruto spoke up, voice still completely devoid of emotion, though her iced over heart was thawing slowly.

She was pleased that they were beginning to understand.

"You are aware that you have limits, and that is always good, but you need to also push those limits. You need to work towards becoming shinobi that will not easily be overrun." The blonde explained. "You are young now, so you are permitted to be weak, but not permitted to stay that way. You need to work to become shinobi as strong as the Jonin who watch over you, so that you can someday surpass them. But at the same time, your life cannot simply be you going through the motions. Konoha's ninja have wills of their own that fit into the greater will of fire that protects the village. If you are just another faceless shinobi, you do not belong in the Hokage's ranks."

Maybe that was hypocritical of her, because she strived to be a faceless ghost that only followed orders, but she was not a being of their world. She didn't belong in their Konoha, so Naruto figured that she didn't count. Her goal was to help the world from the shadows, and she did not wish the solitude on the children before her. She deserved it, they did not.

"So… all that throwing us around was…?" Ino prompted.

"Me driving home my point." Naruto deadpanned. "Asuma-san informed me that his own methods were not working. I found that children respond well to a more hands on approach with these sorts of things."

"You scared the crap out of us." Shikamaru complained, flopping onto his back with a groan, scrubbing his hands across his scowling face.

Choji chuckled, and Naruto was sure she hadn't imagined the slightly hysterical lilt in the short barks of amusement.

"So…? What now?" The Akimichi asked.

Ino looked at the cloaked woman, the only one still standing. Shikamaru did as well, cocking his head slightly in unveiled curiosity.

A swirl of leaves materialized at Naruto's right, and suddenly Asuma was standing beside her.

"That would be my cue." He said with a smile, fresh lit cigarette between his lips. "Up and at 'em brats. Just because you got a little tough love doesn't mean you're getting out of your training for today."

"Sensei!?" Ino shrieked, glaring daggers at him. "You were here the _whole_ time!?"

"Well you didn't think I'd miss how you handled your first serious test as Genin, did you?" He asked, taking a drag of his vice and blowing it out in a lazy white jet.

Shikamaru rose his eyebrows at his fellow lazy bones.

"We got tossed like we were rag dolls. I had no idea what was going on for half the time this "test" was happening." The genius muttered.

"Well, I think that was sort of the point." Asuma shrugged, unrepentant, failing to hide his amusement. "You're not always going to have these neat and planned perimeters to work with, you need to be able to hit the ground running or adapt to situations not accounted for on the fly. And none of you are gonna be able to do that if you never get off of your ass seriously and train."

"Sensei, couldn't you have told us what Naruto did without all of the… you know." Choji said, gesturing with his hands a little helplessly.

"Have you taken anything I said about your behavior seriously before?" The Sarutobi asked, raising a single brow.

"Of course we have!" Ino protested, crossing her arms.

Even Shikamaru nodded, looking at his sensei as if he was doubting the man's intelligence. His way of communicating "of course we've taken you seriously".

"Oh really. And when were you going to seriously start behaving as if you did?" Asuma countered drolly, brown eyes shifting between all three of his students. "When one of you got killed in an accident? When you saw that your peers surpassed you? When it was too late?"

Naruto watched the posture of the reprimanded children sag slightly. The blonde wondered if this was how both Kakashi and Kurenai had handled the reactions that their Genin had to her… unique teaching method.

It was quite effective.

It made Naruto also wonder how the other Genin were… if anything about their behavior had changed after she had spoken to them. Hopefully they had taken her words to heart, because even if they didn't know it… they didn't want to grow up into the people she had known. Because if they did, they'd be corpses before they hit twenty five.

With that grim thought in mind Naruto's eyes softened, but no one could tell.

"Well," Naruto intoned, gaining everyone's attention. "Team Ten performed as expected of freshly minted Genin. I have no negative words for them at this point, if my own point has gotten through to them."

"Y-yes!" Ino assured her, nodding vigorously. "Loud and clear Naruto-san!"

"Troublesome." Shikamaru grumbled, scratching at the side of his head. "I got it."

"M-me too." Choji stuttered. "I got it. A-and sorry f-for… y'know… yelling at you."

"Good, then I see no reason to remain." Naruto flatlined, turning slightly towards Choji with, "It's of no consequence. You value their safety, there is nothing wrong with that."

Choji gaped, a flush rising in his cheeks at her words. Naruto looked to Asuma, and he grinned.

"Can't say I'm very pissy about how you handled my brats." He said. "Thanks for teaching them today."

The blonde almost stiffened, but she had better control over herself than that. She hadn't been thanked by someone in a long time. She'd forgotten how... pleasant it was. But then she viciously reminded herself that she wasn't in the realm that she was in for pleasantries. She had a job to do and it didn't have anything to do with her self-esteem.

"I was simply doing my duty." Naruto finally returned, and then she bowed slightly, putting a formal barrier between them, trying to gain some distance, something controlled and _safe._

But Asuma waved her off good naturedly.

Not wanting to draw things out anymore than she already had unconsciously, she summoned her chakra and was gone in a burst of swirling gold.

The Sarutobi took another drag off his cigarette, brown eyes thoughtful. He had been standing pretty close to her, so he could see her only visible features quite clearly. Those being her eyes. And he knew he hadn't imagined the way that they widened ever so slightly when he thanked her.

 _'I guess maybe she's not as good at hiding as she originally lead us to believe.'_ He mused. _'But I'm sure she'll give us hell before she admits to being anything more than an iced over soldier beneath that hood.'_

"I just realized something." Shikamaru drawled, pulling the Sarutobi from his thoughts.

"What is it?" Ino asked, some of the color that Asuma hadn't realized that she'd lost returning.

"How come Choji didn't get tossed around?" The Nara grumbled.

"Hey wait a minute!" Ino screeched, shooting to her feet and pointing at the startled Akimichi in outrage. "Why _is_ that? You're the only one that Naruto-san left alone!"

"N-now Ino… I wouldn't really say she left me alone." Choji offered, breaking into a faint sweat. "She was just as harsh on me as she was with you guys."

"Maybe verbally." Shikamaru complained, rolling his eyes.

Ino opened her mouth, and Choji cringed, but before she could force them all to dive any further into _that_ can of worms, Asuma cleared his throat. Loudly.

"Yeah, this is fun and all, but you know what would be even better?" The Jounin asked.

His students looked to him in that curious and trusting way that all cute little Genin had. It honestly should have made him feel like an ass but it just reminded him of his own bastard Jounin sensei that he never got to get back for all the crap he put Asuma's own team through.

"Laps." Asuma informed them, beaming. "Now hop to it. Ten of 'em and no stopping."

The chorus of answering groans and complaints was music to his evil Jounin ears.

* * *

Naruto landed on the tiled awning that sat outside of the Hokage office's window, pushing said opening up and climbing in.

Hiruzen Sarutobi was not surprised to see her, and only set his quill down to look at her agreeably as the blonde let herself in. He rose the privacy seals within his office, so that their conversation was truly their own.

Naruto moved into the spacious room further, so that she stood before the old man as he sat at his desk, covered in perpetual paperwork.

"You needed something?" The Sandaime prompted.

Naruto reached up, pushing her hood off of her head, unruly gold strands springing forward and framing her unamused face.

"I taught all of the rookie Genin teams as you ordered." She stated. "Now file this ridiculous mission away as completed so I can get on with more pressing matters."

The old man simply rose a single brow at her rude demands. And the blonde couldn't help but think that Asuma really was his father's son because the eyebrow expression thing they had going on was just… ugh. It was more irritating on the Sandaime honestly. But Naruto knew that was only because of the way that the blasted old man was using it.

"Oh?" He said. "And what could be more pressing than the moulding of the village's future protectors?"

"Don't try and twist it that way." Naruto growled, eyes narrowing at the old man who was definitely repressing a smirk. "You know full well what I mean by that and you also know that their Jounin are perfectly capable of teaching them the way of the shinobi."

"And I suppose this capability somehow didn't factor into the reason why you're here?" The Sandaime returned, a hard edge in those too keen eyes of his. "Because if they were so capable, why would you even be in this realm in the first place? Why would the counterparts of those children be dead, if their sensei were "perfectly capable"."

Naruto's hackles rose, and without her consent her eyes blazed red.

"I think you forget exactly who you're talking to, old man." She drawled, her tone emotionless in the same dangerous way that it was when she hunted traitors. "My circumstances have never been light, and I do not appreciate you making light of them."

"I think you misunderstand me Naruto." Hiruzen said, his eyes softening, if only a bit.

"Do I really?" She snapped.

"Yes, you do." He stated, unmoved by the vicious aura radiating from her deadly still form. "I'm not making light of what happened to your loved ones, I would never do that and you ought to know me better than that."

Her eyes were still red, but her unconscious intent faded, ceasing its maddening scratching around the elder, attempting to grab hold, to strangle, to _hurt,_ to-

Naruto shook those thoughts away from her.

 _'Calm down.'_ She told herself. _'That's not you. And that's not him. You're being irrational…'_

The Sandaime seemed to realize exactly when Naruto managed to get ahold of herself, so he continued.

"I am simply saying, that if you do not wish to see the fate that befell your world happen here, you should do something to change it. That entails more than slinking through the shadows and killing." The Hokage said. "Just as much as the people that started the Fourth War in your world were responsible, the ones who fought in it were as well. They were not strong enough to do what was needed of them. That is sad, unbearably and tragically so, but who better to ensure that does not happen here than someone who lived through it? You can make sure that those children are ready for whatever there is to come."

Boiling red lulled, calming to crystal blue. Naruto opened her mouth to protest, but Hiruzen held his hand up to silence her, and she allowed him to continue speaking.

"I know you don't want to get attached to them, but don't you see Naruto?" He asked, his eyes finally melting, training an empathetic gaze on her that made her want to pull her hood up and hide. "You can only do so much from a distance. Who are you saving hiding from everyone and everything?"

Naruto's breath hitched, those words resonating somewhere deep inside of her that she had thought locked away. She didn't like it, couldn't handle it and what she had become. So like most things that Naruto couldn't or wouldn't deal with, she tried to stuff the feelings away, shoving them into a corner where they couldn't harm her. But that corner was full. All of them were, and there was no room anywhere for anything else that she was too cowardly to face. The blonde quickly turned her back, feeling the violent urge to gouge out her own eyes because not for the first time in the passed week she felt them stinging, welling with tears.

"Fuck." She choked. " _Fuck_ this!"

She was supposed to be stronger than this. Even if she was utterly pathetic, she was supposed to have enough control to not break down like this. What the hell was happening to her?

"Naruto…" Hiruzen said mournfully.

He sounded closer than before, and she knew he had gotten out of his seat so that he could move closer to her, standing behind her, close enough to touch.

Naruto tried to will the pitiful tears away, but they just poured out of her in an unrelenting flood, so she had no choice but to reach up and scrub them away. She was careless as she did this, probably on the verge of injuring herself with her immense strength. But before that could happen, her wrists were taken in firm, yet caring hands, and pulled down, baring her shame to the Sandaime.

Naruto had enough control to keep her face deceptively blank, but she did not realize that it made her appearance all the more heartbreaking. Tears poured from her shimmering eyes, the most expressive features she had, the only things about herself that she couldn't hide completely behind a carefully constructed mould.

The old man, her dear friend released her wrists, so that they hung limply at her sides. He reached up, several inches shorter than her so that he could take her face in his caring and weathered hands. He brought her face down a little closer so that he didn't have to reach up so far, thumbing away her shame. He looked at her in a way that made her feel like nearly shattered glass. And she knew. She knew that wasn't far from the truth at all.

"This is all your fault." Naruto informed him. "You couldn't leave well enough alone. I need my seals. And because I'm aware of them, they're not as effective as they should be."

"Naruto," The Sandaime said again, shaking his head sadly. "You don't need seals that repress who you are. You need to be who you are and grieve, and after that, you need to get up again, because you're better than this."

"You see old man, that's just the thing," Naruto said, pulling away from his caring hands. "I'm not better than this. I'm worse than this. It's the reason I'm here, because I'm weak. If I do what you say, be that remove my seals or remain by the side of those children, I will shatter."

"I don't believe it so." The old man said, shaking his head slightly.

"Well believe it." Naruto snapped, losing even more of her composure. "I'm telling you this because you need to know. You don't have to want it, and you don't have to like it. It's the way it is, and if you trust me with those children, everyone will regret it."

The Sandaime frowned, and he took a step back, away from her, before he outright turned and walked around her and back to his desk. Naruto's fair brows furrowed as she turned to face his desk, watching him round it and seat himself back in his chair.

"My orders still stand." He stated flatly. "You are to assist Jounin Hatake, Sarutobi, and Yūhi in the training of their Genin. Your grievances have been heard and considered, so I will say that you may consider this mission complete if at least one of the Genin teams make Chunin this year."

Naruto stared at him.

 _'He's serious.'_ She realized.

And so, Naruto lifted her chin imperiously. Her eyes blazed gold, and her hair lit up, glowing with dense chakra.

"I think you forget that I am your ninja in only appearance." She stated, bold whisker marks appearing across her previously unmarked cheeks. "I am not obligated to follow your orders if I do not see fit, and I _will not_ follow them if I do not see fit."

Hiruzen folded his hands before his grim face, elbows on his desk, and eyes cold in a way that Naruto had never seen them. But she would not be deterred. Her cloak moved like liquid gold, gentle flame like tails swaying at its ends.

"If you want to play this game with me, then perhaps I should say that though you are not obligated to listen, I am not obligated to allow you to do as you please." The Hokage said. "You can easily do as you see fit out of my village. If you will not help me, then you have no place here. We had an agreement that we would cooperate, and if you are not willing to do so, you know where the exit is."

It was like being slapped across the face, because even if she didn't want to admit it in any way shape or form, some part of her thought of this Konoha as her home. To have someone that she trusted the way that she did the Sandaime say so callously that she could leave and it was of no consequence... it was an uncomfortably heavy blow.

But these thoughts didn't show in the slitted pupils of her glowing gold-red eyes. Nothing showed but pure unrelenting power.

"If that is what you wish." She said coldly.

Nothing else was said.

She was gone in a blink.

Hiruzen sagged in his chair, reaching up and snatching his hat off of his head, slamming it onto his desk. He released the privacy seals and then took a moment to rub a frustrated hand down his face.

"That didn't go as I wanted it to." The old man admitted quietly.

"No, I don't imagine so." A new and very much amused voice responded, a tall form peeling away from the far wall. "Though really, she wasn't in a right state of mind. You can tell because she didn't notice me."

The old man looked up, glaring at the man standing across from him.

"Go get that idiot." Hiruzen growled.

With a grin, Obito disappeared in a swirling vortex.

* * *

 **I dunno if I did Asuma's character justice. I did try though, so hopefully you guys approve.**


End file.
